


The Locked Door

by guardianangelcas



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fuck Or Die, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:46:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 32,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23492674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guardianangelcas/pseuds/guardianangelcas
Summary: The Clone Wars have launched the galaxy into darkness, and hundreds of Jedi have fallen. With nowhere else to turn, the Order seeks to ally with powerful Force users from the Unknown Regions.Just a three-cycle trip from Ilum, the planet s’Ziscari is home to the largest army of Force sensitives known to the galaxy, three times the size of the Jedi Order and with no current allegiance to the Republic.  There, Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and his newly ordained Jedi Knight are to negotiate an alliance with the s’Ziscari government on behalf of the Order and the Republic.As the separatist army grows ever stronger, the fate of trillions rests in their hands…
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Reader, Obi-Wan Kenobi/You
Comments: 87
Kudos: 958





	1. Why is the Girl Here?

**Author's Note:**

> THIS WILL BE A FUCK OR DIE-ESQUE FIC. Smut will come in part two.

“Why is it,” you ask, the heels of your leather boots clicking in perfect synchronization with the cloaked figure to your left, “that the greatest negotiator in the Jedi Order wields a blue saber, and not a green one?”

While you're unable to see his gentle smile from underneath your dark cowl, you sense a general wave of amusement reverberate through the Force from his direction. The energy somehow feels like the equivalent of a lift inside the cavity in your chest; transparent, tinted a soft blue in color, comfortable, calm, and _familiar._

“Perhaps we should trade,” comes that crisp and precise Coruscanti accent you've ached to hear for the past two years. “No matter how much you lamented its color as a youngling, you know I have always been rather fond of yours.”

It’s true, you think. The color green never really… _agreed_ with you, and much less what it represents to the Jedi, but your Master always said he found the pastel hue of the saber currently clipped to your belt to be unique and appealing. Green—any shade of it, really—is the color of the Jedi Consulars. The peacekeepers, the diplomats, the healers and seers. Their— _your_ —inner nature and connection to the Force speaks to concord and harmony, and though you’ve come to accept your place amongst the pacifists and mediators in the Order after years of training and meditation, you still remember what a shock it was to discover the color of your kyber crystal as a youngling.

You always thought you’d have a blue saber. The mark of the Guardians—the second of the three branches of Jedi. Their skills are focused in battle, and any saber towards the far end of the color spectrum typically leads to specializing in lightsaber combat and warfare tactics. That’s what you always thought your soul spoke to most—the _warriors_ of the Order. The soldiers and the members of the Jedi Core, the battle tacticians, the security of the Republic and law enforcers. You were always a bit of a brash and emotional child compared to your peers, a bit of a handful as a youngling, and you were certain your saber would be some shade of blue because of that. At that age, a yellow saber was _maybe_ a possibility. Though you didn’t really have the amount of friends a sociable, service-oriented Sentinel would have, you still felt that if you didn’t have a blue saber, then yellow was far more likely than green. Yet, you still remember blinking down at your tiny, open palm deep in a cave on Ilum, stunned, a pale mint kyber crystal held precariously in it and nearly vibrating with how loudly it was calling to you through the Force.

“Did the Council do that on purpose, you think?” You ask, the both of you taking a sharp right down another unfamiliar marble hallway with no spoken direction. “Pair their most combative Consular with their most mild-mannered Guardian all those years ago, hoping we’d make a good team?”

“You know as well as I do that I chose you for a Padawan myself, young one,” your Master hums. “And _that…_ we have always been.”

It’s been two years since you last saw him. Two years, since you passed your trials and graduated from his tutelage. Knighthood has been good to you with the exception of your former Master’s extended absence, a consequence of your newfound independence as a bonafide member of the Order. Though the circumstances surrounding your much anticipated reunion with him certainly aren’t ideal, you’re glad nonetheless that you’re face-to-face again—or, currently, shoulder-to-shoulder.

You hide the ghost of a smile under your hood and maintain a steady, calm signature in the Force, keeping in stride with him and speaking in hushed tones. “Things must really be desperate if they’re putting us back together again.”

“I do not wish to alarm you,” he drawls, sarcastic in cadence but a hint of affection weaving through his voice all the same, “but we _are_ in the middle of a war.”

“Fair,” you acknowledge with a tilt of your head, though being on a planet so far removed from the chaos currently wreaking havoc on the rest of the galaxy allows you the privilege of pretending for the moment. “A threat to the very fabric of the Republic is the only reason the Council would sanction the two of us reuniting.”

Though you say it jokingly, there’s something hidden in it. An unspoken apprehension you’re attempting to mask with the high spirits of seeing him again. The stakes of the forthcoming interplanetary negotiation are absolutely staggering, and though it remains unsaid, you understand that just as well as he does. Scared isn’t the right word, and neither is worried, but—

“I sense a mild trepidation in you, young one,” your Master murmurs, and _yes,_ that’s it. A mild trepidation.

“I am…” You close your eyes and attempt to find the right words. “I am… considering the long-term consequences should this endeavor fail,” you eventually settle on, allowing your feet to lead you left as you keep your pace with him. “While I consider it a great honor to lead this negotiation on behalf of the Galactic Republic, I’m concerned the Council’s faith in me is… ill-placed.”

Your Master turns his head just marginally in your direction, and though you both can't technically see each other, you know the face he's making under the hood of his robe: his eyebrow is raised, his chin is tilted, and there's the faintest hint of an amused grin threatening to morph the slightly sassy expression to one of genuine humor. “You distrust the Council’s judgement?”

“Failure and any potential repercussions will be mine alone to bear,” you clarify. “It’s not the Council I lack faith in, but rather my own skills as a mediator.”

At this, the Jedi does chuckle. “And I'm to assume I'm just the tauntaun next door in this scenario?”

The apprehension clears, almost immediately, and you can’t help but grin gently in return. He always did have that effect on you. “Better be,” you toss out, sensing the large congregation of lifeforms gradually burn brighter in the Force as you both continue your quiet approach. “This is _my_ negotiation, after all; the Council’s instructions were clear.”

“Very well,” he agrees. “And, since this is _your_ negotiation, I’m sure you’re more than aware of s’Ziscari etiquette and tradition? Wouldn’t want to offend them by accident.”

“Of course,” you nod. “But a… a quick refresher certainly wouldn’t hurt.”

Your Master just tsks quietly, but launches into a brief explanation for you all the same. “It is the Council’s understanding that Queen s’Zerthia is absent from the Palace at the moment. In lieu of an audience with her, Ambassador Zyther is the only other member of her Royal Majesty’s court who happens to be fluent in Basic, so be sure to address only _him_ when you speak, and to speak slowly and clearly, as it’s crucial they understand our intentions are purely diplomatic in nature. Do not forget the s’Ziscari are a Force sensitive race; they’ll be able to spot deception the second you think to speak it aloud. Not that I anticipate the need to mislead them for any reason, of course, but please. Be mindful.”

Instead of answering him, you direct an affirmative through the Force, and your Master continues.

“They are known to take offense to extended eye contact and they’re not fond of humor or small-talk either, so skip directly to the point: the Jedi are here on behalf of the Republic to garner the support of their planet during these times of war and great unease. Intel tells us they have amassed an army of Force sensitives three times the size of the Order. While we’re hoping for a pledge of at least a thousand soldiers to fight in the Clone Wars, we are more than willing to compromise and accept any assistance they’d be gracious enough to provide nonetheless.”

“In exchange for what?” You ask, the throne room doors now in sight. You were formally debriefed on mission details during the three day trip to s’Ziscari, but the answer to that specific question was kept purposefully vague, even for the likes of the Council. Presently, you still have no idea what exactly you’re meant to be bargaining _with_ , not _for._

“In exchange for the continued security of having a peaceful and harmonious neighbor with which to share the galaxy,” he replies breezily, the both of you coming to a halt directly in front of two large wooden doors. “Now. Are you quite ready?”

“Hang on,” you say, turning to face him, and he carefully ducks his head and removes his hood with two hands as his body rotates to mirror yours. “You’re telling me that we’re walking into the most important negotiation in the entire galaxy without actually having anything substantial to offer on our behalf?”

Slowly, the dark cowl is lifted from your head as well, and your eyes lock with a pair of calm cerulean blues staring back at you as he gently soothes the fabric down by your collar. He looks older—ever since the Clone Wars started, Jedi Master General Obi-Wan Kenobi has aged significantly. Gone are the long, flowing locks he sported for most of your youth—the short hair with a clean part is more refined, the beard fuller and more mature. More… attractive than you remember him being, even though you always remembered him being… _achingly_ attractive.

Instead of answering your question, however, he simply moves both hands to rest over the curve of your shoulders, lowering his head and lifting his eyebrows at you in a look of genuine sincerity that makes your heart thump painfully in your chest.

“I am so very proud of you, my former Padawan,” he tells you quietly, and you feel yourself nearly swell with warmth. You’re strong enough in the Force to subdue the sentiment before it bleeds into your signature, but you can’t help the way your face flushes slightly and a girlish little smile pulls tight at your cheeks. “You’ve grown into a fine Knight and an exemplar for the Order. No matter the outcome of this mission, nor of this war, please know I’ve been truly blessed by the Maker to have been given the privilege of training you all these years.”

Master Kenobi tilts his head forward just slightly, allowing his Force signature to brush delicately against yours for just a moment, the soft periwinkles and lavenders of his energy swirling gently through your pastel seafoams and teals.

And then he clears his throat, straightens his spine, and claps his hands tight to your upper arms.

“Come now, Jedi,” he winks, turning his head to the double doors and breaking into a brilliant grin, the skin around his eyes crinkling with age but the sparkle in them still lovely and youthful and bright. “The fate of the galaxy awaits.”

* * *

Master Obi-Wan Kenobi remembers very clearly the day he chose you as a Padawan.

You were a fiery little thing. The Sentinels who raised younglings at the Academy would often speak about you at length to the Council, each of them reporting back with the same issues and concerns. Too emotional, too chaotic, too rebellious for the likes of the Jedi. You threw tantrums, you had outbursts, and to him, you were very likely the worst possible candidate for a negotiator to take on as an apprentice, if only because by all accounts it appeared that you were nigh impossible to negotiate _with._

But then you caught his eye one day when Master Yoda was in the process of introducing him to your class. You should’ve been paying attention to the wisdom being shared by the oldest Consular in the Order (and, admittedly, so should he) but instead, you were gazing quietly at a dove that made its nest on the transparisteel dome arching across the ceiling. Obi-Wan remembers feeling your energy cautiously reach out towards it, gentler than anything he could’ve expected from a child of your age and reputation, and the moment stuck with him.

The younglings were each allowed one possession at the Academy, and when it came time for him to choose a Padawan, he swiped yours, if only to see what you’d do. A stuffed rancor you’d endearingly named Cory—rather hideous looking thing, if you asked him—and he was told you were fiercely protective over it.

Obi-Wan remembers carefully setting the stuffed animal down next to him in one of the old storage rooms in the isolated training area, locking the door manually and then taking a quick second to cloak his Force signature. You had three options, he figured, if you were able to find its location. Use the Force to unlock the door, use the brand new saber clipped to your belt to create your own door, or leave without your stuffed rancor. Based off your reputation as an emotionally volatile little youngling, he was assuming he’d have to replace the frame and wall paneling altogether, but regardless, Obi-Wan figured that if you had the nerve to break into the locked room to retrieve your missing possession, he would train you, and if you didn’t, then he’d find someone else.

He waited patiently, meditating for a few hours on your signature from across the Academy. He went through the subsequent stages with you. A bright flare of panic, probably from noticing its absence from your quarters. Sharp sparks of frustration for the next few minutes, likely in response to nobody knowing where it went. He was expecting some sort of distraught next as you began making your way through the Academy to search for it yourself, some sort of upset, but then you surprised him for the second time.

All at once… Quiet. _Serenity._ Your signature carefully sweeping out in all directions as you walked through the halls, calmly attempting to locate your missing possession.

Obi-Wan pondered this as you approached, and what it might mean. Were you just an excellent student when you felt the stakes were high enough? Were you capable of listening to instructions despite what he’d heard about you in passing? Were you simply just strong in the Force? Or was there perhaps more to you than what others had told him?

Soon, he could hear your footsteps come to a halt in front of the locked door. He waited silently; hidden in the darkness, hidden in the Force, barely breathing while he listened for either the sound of a lightsaber turning on or a lock clicking. He knew you’d find some way to breach the entrance somehow; he knew you wouldn’t just give up and leave.

Except, then all he heard was a quiet little rap of knuckles against metal.

“Master Kenobi?” A small voice called through the door, and Obi-Wan froze.

To your credit, he wasn’t focusing on hiding himself the way he should’ve been. Had you been roughly ten years older, he might’ve taken the time to concentrate a bit harder on it, but truthfully, that’s not what surprised him the most.

You didn’t break in at all.

Instead, you… knocked.

“Master Kenobi?” You tried again after a moment, your knuckles tapping quietly on the door once more.

“Em…” He eventually cleared his throat. “Yes?”

“I think you may have accidentally taken something of mine on accident,” you carefully said after a moment, the overly cautious intent not to offend or intrude suddenly striking him as an invaluable trait in a potential negotiator. “May I please have him back please?”

You _were_ quite a handful at times, Obi-Wan thinks, but it’s been so long. So long since he’s had to correct you in any way. As the years passed, you aged from an emotional Padawan to a refined Knight, a hot-tempered adolescent to a disciplined and capable young Jedi.

Now he looks on as you greet the s’Ziscari Ambassador to the Republic, your head bowed in respect and your eyes focused somewhere near the man’s chest. It appears the two of you have an audience for your audience—members of the Royal Court are sitting perched in a tiered viewing gallery, speaking quietly amongst themselves as you introduce Obi-Wan and state your purpose to the room.

Your voice rings out sharp and clear, and throughout the entire negotiation, not once does he feel compelled to assist you in any way. You do everything right—you make fair points without stepping on any toes, you never allow the Ambassador’s booming voice intimidate you or sway your collected composure.

Obi-Wan meant what he said. He’s proud of you.

Though… though at one point throughout the mediation, something about this starts to not… _feel_ right.

It’s the Royal Court, he realizes. They’ve stopped talking, they’re… paying attention. It doesn’t make sense—none of them speak Basic, they must just be reading the energies in the room. Nothing spectacular has happened—no outburst, nothing to draw their attention any more than when you both first made your entrance. The Ambassador’s voice continues to echo throughout the vast ceilings and contrast with the pleasant and tranquil alto of your steady responses, but then Obi-Wan suddenly goes rigid and spins around— 

The Royal Count immediately stands in unison as the Ambassador abruptly cuts off, and a familiar signature reveals itself in the Force.

* * *

The Queen.

_The Queen_ is here.

You keep your head down and follow the intricate laced bodice of her gown as she makes her entrance into the grand throne room, gliding right between you and your Master before climbing the stairs and collapsing down onto the throne with a sigh. The Council was misinformed concerning her whereabouts, apparently.

The Court finds a seat not long after she does, and you clench your jaw at the unfortunate twist of events. Her presence means that whatever progress you’ve made with the Ambassador is now, for all intents and purposes, moot.

There’s also just something… odd about her and her energy, you think, something you can’t quite place. The second she turns her head and looks in your eyes is the second you forget all about avoiding eye contact with her, but if she’s offended by your sudden lack of etiquette, she displays no signs of it. In fact, you’d almost argue she looks intrigued.

“Your Majesty,” you greet. “I was just—”

“I got the gist,” she waves a manicured hand at you. “What was your name again, little girl?”

You tell her, and put a hard emphasis on your full title. She may be a monarch, but you are a General in the Clone Wars and a Knight of the Republic, and an attempt by the opposing party at intimidation by flippant degradation will not be tolerated.

“Pleasure,” she nods. “May I ask what your people are willing to offer in exchange for the military assistance you’re seeking?”

You swallow thickly, your stomach sinking. “Truly, your Majesty, I… I cannot provide you with a specific answer to that at this time. However, we would gladly be willing to—”

“Perhaps you can answer me this, then, little Knight, since I never was able to obtain anything satisfactory from your High Council,” the Queen interrupts, studying her jeweled manicure and sounding bored with the conversation she just initiated, and you feel your Master stiffen behind you. “If we s’Ziscari are so incredibly important to the Jedi, as you previously insisted to the Ambassador multiple times, then why in Maker’s name does the Council reject invitations to partake in our people’s most sacred of ceremonies year after year?”

You’re… you’re at a complete loss for words. The Sentinels have dedicated ambassadors to travel the territories specifically for these reasons, to keep political relations agreeable between outer-rim planets and the Jedi. There would be no discernible reason as to why the Council would reject attendance to an annual s’Ziscari cultural celebration, especially if their standing military was even half as powerful in the Force as rumors would imply.

Obviously you’re not privy to any of this information, so you subtly reach out to Master Kenobi’s Force signature with a tiny flicker of uncertainty, silently questioning your next move. However, before you can barely even mentally gauge the calm, sky blue of his aura, your Master’s outer-shields _slam_ into place and even so much as shove against your open question in warning.

“It was—” You trip over your sentence, heart thumping in your chest with panic at his unprecedented response to you, “—It was never our intention to cause any offense, I’m certain—”

“And yet great offense was caused nonetheless,” the Queen returns. “However. As it just so happens, you’ve arrived on my planet the day the Sh’inzith Ritual is to commence. Because of that, I am more than willing to allow the Order to remedy their grave lapse in judgement tonight, in exchange for…” She tilts her chin at you, considering. “Ten thousand soldiers to fight in your little war. What say you, Jedi?”

No, this is wrong. This is all _wrong_ —an addition of ten thousand trained Force sensitives would put an immediate end to the Clone Wars. Full stop. Instead of being tempted by the bait, however, you’re just becoming increasingly wary of it.

Regardless of how on edge you are, you keep an unbothered composure and continue stunting any major change to your signature. “You cannot expect me to agree to a deal before knowing the finer points of its terms, my Queen.”

“Of course not,” she agrees diplomatically. “My terms are simple, really. All you have to do is—”

“If you will pardon the interruption,” Master Kenobi’s voice suddenly rings out from behind you for the first time in what feels like ages, and he takes a few steps forward until he’s standing directly adjacent to you. “Apologies to the Court, but my companion and I have grown very weary from a long tr—”

“No apologies necessary, Master Kenobi,” the Queen grins, her eyes flicking away from yours. “Thought I saw you back there. Shall I elaborate? I’ll make it quick, so you don’t fall asleep.”

There’s a tense, pregnant silence that fills the throne room as everybody waits for his response, and you’re left wondering how your Master knows this woman. 

He breaks eye contact with the monarch first and stares down at the floor while he considers his answer, before finally settling on a quiet, “Leave us.”

The Queen nods exactly once and everyone in the gallery rises and slowly files out. You take a moment to glance around at the handful of guards surrounding the throne room, waiting for their perfect statuesque posture to falter. Only, they remain completely motionless.

You turn back to the Queen, watching you thoughtfully from her elevated throne, and then to your Master, who’s… still looking down at the floor.

It takes you a bit longer than it should, even then.

Obi-Wan says your name in a tight, urging tone, not even bothering to turn his head to address you. “Please.”

What?

You? He wants _you_ to leave? But… the Council said… they said that this is _your_ negotiation. Clearly they failed to provide you with some very crucial piece of information, so now he’s dismissing you because of it? Openly? In front of the other party?

“But… But I was supposed to—”

_“Padawan,”_ he all but snaps at you. “Please.”

You stand there, holding yourself as still as possible, absolutely stunned. Your Master has never spoken to you this way. You’ve never heard him speak to anyone this way.

The Queen just smiles down at you saccharinely from her throne, clearly enjoying your blatant discomfort and embarrassment.

This is humiliating.

You’d never say it out loud. But as you quietly leave the throne room, two guards on either side accompanying you to your chambers, you practically shove the words at him through the Force, trying your absolute hardest not to let the hurt through. Though in hindsight, you may have emphasized the last part a bit too harshly.

_Of course. Master._

* * *

Obi-Wan realizes the grievousness of his mistake the second it comes out of his mouth. He doesn’t need the extended moment of silence as you work to process the unintentional insult. He doesn’t need the way your Force signature suddenly seems incredibly small, like it shrank in on itself in mortification. He most definitely does not need the spiteful remark reverberating around his brain as your footsteps fade into nothingness, the thought so sharp and directed that he’d likely have trouble blocking it out.

“Strange,” the Queen drawls out in his direction, breaking him from the whirlwind of his thoughts. “Do you really still view her as a Padawan? But she’s such a pretty girl. And she was doing so well.”

“I will not speak of this with you,” Obi-Wan replies candidly, abandoning all pleasantries now that they’re alone.

“Oh, but you will,” s’Zerthia tuts, somehow sounding disapproving and gleeful in equal parts. “If you want your army, that is.”

_“Must_ you be so cruel, Your Majesty?” Obi-Wan sighs, lowering his head and rubbing the bridge of his nose. Maker, he’s getting a headache. “Are the Uncharted Regions truly that dull?”

“Come now, old friend,” she grins, tilting her head at him as she relaxes back in her throne. “You’ve known of my nature since we were introduced at the Senate all those decades ago. There is a reason you’re still with the peace-loving wizard monks and I am now the reigning monarch over twenty thousand square parsecs of territories.”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan acknowledges. “And now we are _grown._ Though it appears someone has yet to remind you.”

“Contrary to what you may believe, _General_ Kenobi, this is not about me,” the Queen sighs. “My people do not look kindly upon the Jedi. The Ritual is a celebration of our connection with the Force, and denying an invitation, to them, is akin to denying their existence as a Force sensitive people. I can give you your army at any time, of course—I _am_ Queen. But I fear that will not be enough. The s’Ziscari will not willingly fight for you until you pay your due respects to our culture.”

“Queen s’Zerthia,” he exhales, clearly exasperated, “I cannot call myself Jedi and partake in such… _proclivities_. The Council will never agree to such measures. There must be some other way.”

“There isn’t, old friend,” she huffs shortly, her signature beginning to spark with impatience. “Make your choice.”

“I am not having _sex_ in an _arena,_ s’Zerthia,” he hisses.

“Then the Republic shall fall.”

“You’ll let trillions die—”

“Do not _speak_ to me as if you are not the only person who can change that, Jedi!” The Queen suddenly barks, her voice echoing throughout the empty throne room and booming with frustration. “I _cannot_ make them fight! They love their Queen, but I am thirty-nine years old, for star’s sake! These traditions have lasted for millennia! Would you abandon the ways of your religion simply because your leader ordered it so?”

“That is _exactly_ what you’re demanding of me,” he returns sharply.

“Yes,” s’Zerthia acknowledges. “But you are but one martyr, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Not an army.”

Obi-Wan sighs. “I’ve… s’Zerthia, I’ve never… It’s _forbidden_. And now you’re asking me to break my oath in front of an _audience_ … with someone I don’t know?” He keeps his voice as steady as possible, but he knows it’s useless. The Queen of the s’Ziscari will see the wavering in his Force signature. The underlying pulse of fear at the center.

It’s her turn to sigh. “The Sh’inzith is about celebrating our connection with the Force… consensually. I… may be able to speak to some of my people about the possibility of you participating in private, due to the,” she clears her throat, “delicate nature of the situation, as well as your particular upbringing. However. You will have to project during the… closing ceremonies, if only to prove your direct involvement. This is the best I can do. Do we have an agreement?”

Obi-Wan drops his gaze. “I… I don’t know. I must confer with the Council first. But… but with their permission…” He chooses to leave his sentence unfinished, still so unbelievably uncomfortable with the terms of this nightmare to agree to them aloud.

“Understood,” she nods. “Then I shall arrange to send someone to your chambers at midnight unless you notify my staff otherwise. Which would you prefer—a man or a woman?”

He stays silent, his stomach churning in discomfort. He doesn’t think he’s ever even considered the question before. He truly doesn’t know how to answer it.

Intuitively, the Queen moves on. “No matter. What of the girl, then? A man would do well for her, I’m assuming?”

He lifts his head, furrowing his eyebrows. “The girl? What girl?”

“The girl,” s’Zerthia repeats blankly. “All Jedi present will need to participate, of course.”

“No,” Obi-Wan says immediately, taking a few steps forward. “No, that wasn’t the deal. _The girl_ has been a Knight for barely two years, she’s never even heard of the Ritual. She has no part in this.”

“And yet she was meant to lead this negotiation, was she not?” She tsks in disappointment, each staccato click of her tongue echoing throughout the vast ceilings and rafters of the room. “Is that how you Jedi treat your women? Throw her headfirst into a mediator’s position with none of the details she needs to be successful, dismiss and humiliate her when she inevitably fails, and subsequently refuse any involvement in a potential solution on her behalf because she ‘has no part in this’? Perhaps I should be offended that the Jedi thought so little of the s’Ziscari as to assign someone of her standing to lead this negotiation, but as of right now, considering the mere fact that my palace is still intact, I’m actually starting to believe your little Padawan may just be the best of you.”

Obi-Wan says absolutely nothing in response, his heart panging in his chest in shame hearing it put into words that way. He’s never been one to question the decision-making of the Council, but assigning you to this mission had admittedly been something he himself couldn’t quite puzzle out. Obi-Wan understands the need to further develop your diplomatic skills, but the terms of this specific negotiation were just far too complex and far too crucial to the survival of the Republic to gamble on one of the youngest Knights in the Order. By all accounts, you _shouldn’t_ be here, but the Council was very specific in their instructions. You were to lead negotiations, and Obi-Wan was to act as reinforcement should anything happen to go awry.

The Queen quietly studies the Jedi Master all the while, tilting her head thoughtfully. “None of this makes any sense, does it?”

Again, Obi-Wan maintains his silence with a furrowed brow and a far-off look on his face.

“What’s so different about this one?” She asks him, sincere curiosity appearing to overtake her in the moment. “This girl, specifically, out of everyone—why would they choose her for this negotiation? There’d be no discernible reason, unless they wanted her to—”

She cuts herself off abruptly as Obi-Wan quickly flicks his gaze over to her. When she’s silent for too long, he has to prompt her. “Unless they wanted her to what?”

“Ah,” she whispers at once, her expression immediately clearing in understanding. “ _Clever._ Diabolical, manipulative, and entirely unexpected from a group of glorified cultists with brightly colored laser swords. But oh, so _clever.”_

Obi-Wan is starting to become very frustrated with this conversation.

“You know,” the Queen continues, back to studying her manicure, “I used to lament my lack of free will as a member of royalty by marriage. My husband, Maker rest his soul, could never yearn for what he did not know, but as the daughter of a Senator, I was born as low as you. I was a _Miss_ once,” she laughs airily, as if the thought of her holding that title is absolutely ridiculous now. “I knew the difference between a life of freedom and that of a puppet. But. At least my superiors revoked my autonomy to my face. Your Council sees fit to pull strings from behind a curtain.”

“You think the Council _wanted_ this?” He can’t keep the intense skepticism from lacing his tone, despite his best efforts.

The Queen suddenly looks up from her jeweled fingernails and pins him with a hard stare. “Will you bed a stranger even with the direct permission of your betters?” She shoots at him, quite unexpectedly and shameless in her phrasing.

Obi-Wan nearly jerks back, the abrupt change in subject and rather personal question startling him. “I—”

“Would you have asked your Padawan to accompany you here if you’d been put in charge of negotiations instead?”

“I’m not sure I—”

“Do you think it simply a coincidence the two of you were scheduled to arrive on my planet exactly ten hours before a festivity that only happens once every five hundred and some-odd cycles begins?”

“I can assure you I was not privy the t—”

“Why is the girl here?”

He… he doesn’t understand. It’s like she’s trying to have four conversations with him at once. He’s getting whiplash. “s’Zerthia.”

_“Obi-Wan._ Come now, don’t be daft.” She goes back to picking at her fingernails, clearly done with her interrogation for the time being. “She’s here because she is a thousand times more prepared to participate in the Sh’inzith than you are, of course.”

Obi-Wan blinks. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means the Council knew full well what the terms of this negotiation would be,” the Queen shrugs. “Though you may not be too familiar with Jedi-s’Ziscari interplanetary relations, I can assure you we have openly voiced our offense to their denial of our invitations multiple times. We still send them, of course, as is tradition. We have for a few centuries at least. A formal alliance would obviously require some act of rectification on the Council’s behalf, so therefore the only logical assumption to be made is that the girl was chosen for this mission specifically with that in mind. She likely didn’t take an oath of celibacy or something of t—”

_“All_ Jedi take oaths of celibacy,” Obi-Wan interjects with a startlingly unfamiliar edge to his voice, clearly warning her not to continue on in this direction.

”Oh, apologies; I misspoke,” she clarifies. “She probably didn’t take an oath of celibacy _seriously,_ or something of the sort.”

“Mind yourself, s’Zerthia,” he warns her. “I care not of your position nor our history, you will not speak of my protégé that way—”

“Oh, she’s your _protégé_ now?” She grins, amusement flashing in her eyes. “I see. Because we both have been referring to her as your Padawan up until the moment someone other than you decided to insult her, so I wasn’t sure. Forgive me.”

Obi-Wan flushes and opens his mouth once, twice. He is quite honestly speechless at how his… long-time acquaintance is so truly gifted at creating sentences that somehow manage to turn themselves into icy daggers in midair, so instead, he takes a different approach. “E-Even… even if you were slightly correct with that… a-absolutely _baseless_ accusation, it makes no sense,” he reasons desperately, still trying to find some way out of all this. “Breaking an oath of celibacy in her youth does not at all mean she’d be any more likely to lie with a s’Ziscari to complete a diplomatic mis—”

“No,” the Queen agrees, “it means she’d be more likely to lie with a Jedi.”

Obi-Wan stops dead.

She laughs, a soft tinkle of a sound, taking in the underlying shock of his demeanor. “By all their faults, the Council is not stupid.” She almost sounds… impressed. _“Think,_ Obi-Wan. Pair the Greatest Negotiator in the Order with his newly ordained Knight? The one young enough to not have the strict pillars of your cult of a religion so hopelessly cemented into her mindset? The one who so very clearly considers you to be far more than a mentor to her? The Council knew you’d be incredibly reluctant to bed anyone, let alone a stranger from the Uncharted Regions, but they also knew of our history as friends—if anyone in the Order was in a position to make the deal with me, it was you, so if anyone in the Order was in a position to therefore… _persuade_ you to follow through with the conditions of said deal, it was her. To gain ten thousand more Force sensitives and win a galactic war, all your Council had to do was shove two of their most agreeable Generals into bed with one another. Beautifully executed, Machiavellian at its core. Stars. I knew politics suited the Jedi, but this is just…”

Obi-Wan feels his chest sinking deeper and deeper by the second as she kisses her fingers animatedly.

“…Masterful,” s’Zerthia finishes, turning to smile widely at him, positively delighted in her demeanor. “I do say, I may have met my match in your superiors, Obi-Wan. Perhaps they shall make better allies than I’d originally assumed. If nothing else, this little display of cunning and manipulation gives me faith that perhaps the Republic isn’t so completely doomed after all.”

“Do you truly think they’d be so cruel?” He finds himself asking quietly after a moment.

“These are times of war, old friend,” she tilts her head with as much solemn comfort in her voice as she can reasonably provide. “They knew the terms, and they knew you wouldn’t agree if you knew them in advance. This was the only way. And honestly, should a… well, let’s face it, a rather _attractive_ coupling be all that stands between the galaxy and total destruction, I’d say that may just be a fair price to pay. My only lament thus far is your rather timid demeanor. You two would’ve made for a crowd favorite.”

The Queen’s assertion startles him so much that Obi-Wan outright defaults back to skeptical pragmatism instead of entertaining elaborate and incredibly far-fetched conspiracy theories. “Yes, yes, s’Zerthia, but—but this whole entire scheme hinges on the _completely_ incorrect assumption that she and I would actually be willing… willing to…” He can’t even finish the sentence.

“How old are you, Obi-Wan?” She raises a perfectly arched eyebrow at him, thoroughly unimpressed with his sudden lack of articulation. “We are of similar age, correct? Are you outright incapable of saying the word ‘fuck’?”

“Quit being foul,” he snaps. “It suits your personality, not your tongue.”

“So quick-witted in conversation for someone so incredibly dim-witted in practice,” she muses, as if this entire thing is incredibly entertaining to her. “Do you really not see the way she looks at you?”

“She _respects_ me,” Obi-Wan declares meaningfully. “She’s loyal. She thinks much higher of me than I deserve. She’d stand alone in the face of an army if it pleased me and she’d stand _tall—”_

“That’s not the only position she’d assume to please you,” the Queen mutters under her breath, pausing to give him a sweet little smile as Obi-Wan burns a hole through her with his glare. “The only variable remaining is your willingness to please her. After all, the offer to lie with a s’Ziscari instead will always be up for the both of your considerations, as is the ability to walk away entirely at any time of course. I’m assuming the Council was relying on the fact that you’d pitch an absolute fit after being informed her involvement was required—which, naturally, you did. And then they gambled on the answer to a question you’ve yet to ask yourself.” She leans forward and tilts her head at him, lacing her manicured fingers together. “Perhaps it’s not a matter of how willing you are to sleep with your Padawan to save the galaxy from complete and total annihilation, Master Kenobi, but simply a matter of whether or not the clueless little thing will want it bad enough to be able to convince you to do it. This—this is a _real_ negotiation for her now.”

“s’Zerthia—” Obi-Wan sputters, “—I—She—I’ve traversed her consciousness more than anyone in the entire galaxy, and not once has she ever even _hinted_ at the possibility that she—”

“And can you blame her? My, the scandal it would cause!” The Queen presses the back of her hand to her forehead and collapses dramatically back into her throne. “A Jedi Knight secretly harboring feelings for her Master? In my good temple? Shame! Shame! Sha—!”

“You think you know more of my successor than I?” Obi-Wan interrupts sharply, somehow more irritated now at the insinuation than he’d been the entire conversation. “The youngling I raised? The one I handpicked to take my place in the Order, you think you know more of her heart than I?”

“Yes.” s’Zerthia answers him simply, straightening up on her throne and abandoning all theatrics. “Because you did not see her face when you called her Padawan. I did. And I also happen to know far better than most that hiding the truth from nosy Force sensitive authoritarians is most easily accomplished by controlling one’s energy signature. Jedi, s’Ziscari, it matters not the culture—you lot spend far too much effort reading into the Force than simply looking someone in their eyes to learn the truth. Look her in the eyes next time, Master Kenobi. Then you will understand.”

* * *

You’re furious.

The Jedi are not meant to feel fury. But you are a Jedi, and by the Maker, do you feel it.

_“Padawan?”_ You hiss, pacing the length of your bedchamber with clenched fists, trying to control the volume of your voice so desperately that the words come out shaky and slurred. “Padawan? Is that what he thinks of me? That I’m still a youngling?!”

You haven’t been this upset since you were a small child. And the thought stops you dead in your tracks.

You are a General. You are a Consular. You are a _Knight._

Regardless of what _he_ may believe.

So you climb up onto your unnecessarily large bed, crawling the incredibly soft fur blanket of an animal you’ve never seen before to sit yourself in the very center of the mattress, crossing your legs. Though it takes you longer than it has in years, you’re finally able to relax your breathing and clear your mind, slipping into a deep meditative state.

You don’t know how long you stay in that position, nor do you really care to. But when your Force signature feels the slightest brush of your Master’s, likely just looking for your location within the palace, you’re a bit too late in slamming your mental barriers up in response. You know he still senses the reciprocal shove he gave you earlier, the shocking feeling of being practically hurled out of someone’s mind with unprecedented ferocity. But he also knows where you are now.

So, like you’re a youngling at the Academy again, you just pretend to meditate. Like an actual _child,_ you close your eyes and focus on just sitting still. You shouldn’t be responding this way, you tell yourself. Restraining your emotional response has been hammered into you for decades—keeping calm when you’re upset is your _default,_ it’s how you’ve lived your entire adult life. Why can you not seem to accomplish it now?

What… what _is_ this? This toxic, absolutely dreadful emotion? It's hard placing them sometimes when you were taught from infancy to just will them away instead of processing them. It’s not fury, not anymore. It isn’t sadness, either. You’ve been sad—you’ve been sad for two years straight, and it feels nothing like this.

You’re throwing a tantrum, you realize. That’s what this must be. You’re reverting back to your childhood, back to when you felt discounted and disapproved of by nearly everyone around you. You haven’t felt this way in years, not since you met Master Kenobi. This is _hurt._ Just pure, irrational, emotional pain, and it’s manifesting itself in truly ugly ways.

You can feel his signature glow just marginally brighter in the Force as your Master steadily approaches. You take slow breaths, trying to rearrange yourself into something at least mildly composed and tranquil, but it feels almost impossible. So instead, you just try to ignore the past few hours and think back on all the things your Master used to tell you when you were like this, this raging turmoil of emotions overtaking you and causing you to lash out. 

_You are a Consular, child,_ he’d say, and if you focus, you can practically hear the musical cadence of his calm, comforting voice. _A peacekeeper. A dove. When faced with a locked door, what must you always do?_

Master Kenobi’s knuckles rap on the entrance to your quarters quietly, and you blink your eyes open, taking another deep breath before replying. “It’s open.”

The door opens and he takes a few steps inside the room, stopping immediately when he lifts his head up and sees you sitting on your bed.

You both stare at each other in silence for way too long, and you’re not… really sure why. You’re obviously just waiting for _him_ to say something, take the lead in this conversation since he was clearly a better fit to take the lead on this mission, but he just looks at you. For an eternity, he looks at you. Completely blank.

He suddenly jerks his spine straight and breaks eye contact with you, coughing and flicking bright blue eyes around the space as if he’s just noticing it. “Ah, I… Apologies, this is the wrong room. I thought… my quarters are—I must confer with the Council. Please, excuse me.”

And then he turns around and leaves.

You blink a few times, wide-eyed and completely bewildered as the door slides shut behind his billowing cloak.

He… he knocked on the door to his own quarters? And then… and then he waited for you to call him in?

What in Maker’s name is going _on?_

* * *

“This is unbelievable,” Obi-Wan sighs, and the hologram of Master Windu rubs his blue flickering temples in slow circles, looking equally as exasperated as Obi-Wan sounds. “Did you know the Ritual was to take place tonight?”

“The Council had no idea,” the fellow Guardian murmurs, and something pulls tight in Obi-Wan’s chest, remembering the Queen’s assertion that the s’Ziscari continue to send invitations to the Council every year. Perhaps… perhaps there was some sort of an oversight, he thinks, due to the Clone Wars taking precedence for the Order. “Intel told us she’d be off-planet for at least another week.”

Well now, that doesn’t make much sense, not if the Ritual is to begin soon. None of what Master Windu has said throughout the conversation has made any sense at all regarding the situation. Obi-Wan… Obi-Wan thought he’d feel _better_ after speaking to another member of the Council, not more uncertain.

“What does Master Yoda think of all this?” He eventually tries, but the holographic projection of Master Windu sighs and tilts his head regretfully, his upper body flickering and waving with intermittent static.

“Master Yoda is currently dispatched to Rugosa to convince King Katuunko to allow the Republic to build a base in Toydarian territory,” he replies solemnly, and Obi-Wan… needs to meditate. Yes. Meditation sounds like a phenomenal idea. “Are you certain there is no more room for negotiating?”

“An ultimatum was given,” Obi-Wan says shortly. “These are the terms.”

Master Windu takes quite a while before responding, but when he does, he speaks calmly and with purpose, addressing him with a formal opinion. “Then the Council will leave this matter up to the discretions of you and your former Padawan, Master Kenobi. This mission designation has hereby been elevated to the highest level of classified and your subsequent choices need not be reported, nor will they affect either of your places in the Order. May the Force guide you and be with you both through these uncertain times.”

The transmission is cut and Obi-Wan feels his insides twist. 

He collapses onto his bed and groans quietly, burying his face in his hands and finding it easier to just conceal his Force signature altogether than attempt to mask the anxiety and crushing pressure he feels threatening to overwhelm him.

This is not good. This is, in fact, very much a disaster. This is a _mess._ This is far worse than anything he could’ve possibly imagined when he was first assigned to this mission. 

Obi-Wan slowly rakes all ten of his fingers down the sides of his beard, lifting his chin and then letting them drag all the way down his throat, and the quiet scratchy sound it makes mixes in with another longer, even more exhausted groan.

Maker. First things first, he needs to apologize to you and explain the situation. Neither one of those things will be easy to accomplish, but in the grand scheme, they’ll be far simpler than anything else facing him.

He… he takes a second to think about you, about the awful way he unintentionally disrespected you earlier. Stars—he handled this terribly. He was caught off guard and he owes you an explanation, but he’s at a complete loss as to how to go about it.

And why… _Why_ must you have been sitting on your _bed?_ Staring up at him silently, waiting for him atop the very place he’s just been given permission to… to…

Obi-Wan shakes his head and clamps his eyes shut, rubbing them with a bit too much vigor to be from tiredness and stress alone. He should meditate. He should meditate, let his mind break free of the nerves and sudden change of events, but he doesn’t have time to even begin unscrambling the chaos of his thoughts. It’s getting late, and he has an obligation to tell you about the situation as soon as possible, to give you as much time as he can to process the decision facing you before the clock runs out.

He’s dreading this. He’s absolutely _dreading_ it, but it needs to be done.

* * *

After your Master leaves, less than a half hour passes before you hear another knock on the door.

By then, you’re just sitting there. Sitting there, empty. This is good, really. Truly, this is a good thing. A flat emotional state is what you should always strive for, but… nothing about it feels like peace, really. No, this just feels… grey. Desaturated. Dull.

“It’s open,” you call once again, and Master Kenobi quietly enters your chambers. This time you don’t look at him, though. You don’t really… feel the need to, especially from the way his signature is still just barely presenting itself to you, still so guarded and cautious around you when he’s never been this way before.

Your Master comes to a stop right in front of the edge of the mattress, and stands there for a few moments in silence. You just blink down at the mattress and wait, undisturbed, until you hear him heave a long, heavy sigh, before spinning around and unceremoniously sinking down to the floor at the foot of the bed.

Something about it breaks through your blank, almost dissociative state. Your eyebrows narrow just slightly where your gaze is pinned to the fur covering the mattress, hearing him sigh heavily once more out of your line of sight, but it’s enough to urge you to crawl forward until you can see him sitting on the floor at the foot of the mattress, bent over on himself, his head buried in his hands. You’ve never seen your Master look so… vulnerable before. So small—not in all the years you’ve known each other. His energy is so concealed that you’re just barely able to sense anything besides the mere presence of his signature, but he’s clearly distraught with just as much emotion you were struggling with earlier, and suddenly…

Suddenly a calmness sweeps through you. A gentle sort of kindness fills your soul, slowly flooding your energy with color once again at the sight of someone who’s usually so composed struggling so openly in front of you.

Carefully, you lower yourself down until you’re seated on the floor next to him, your back pressed up against the side of the mattress as he continues to hide his face from you. You stay there, not touching him, not saying anything, but just radiating a steady tranquility through the room from the very center of your being, anchoring him through his storm until it clears.

The sun goes down through the window before either of you speak. Your Master eventually drops his hands from his face and takes a deep breath, choosing to break the silence first.

“Before I begin,” he finally says, his shoulders still uncharacteristically tight and full of tension, even though his voice is soft. “I must… I must _sincerely_ apologize to you. This type of subject matter makes me extraordinarily uncomfortable and I took that out on you, and it was absolutely unacceptable behavior on my behalf. Unfortunately, I can offer you no explanation that wouldn't count as an excuse for something that was completely inexcusable.”

“I understand,” you reassure him, just as quietly, but then quickly correct yourself. “Well, no—I don’t. I don’t understand, but. Judging from your demeanor, I can only assume things have become… a bit more complicated.”

Your Master takes another full, deep inhale. “Yes, that’s…” he empties his lungs of air with a huff, amused but in a way that’s not really amused. “That’s certainly one way of putting it.”

“Do you…” You blink at the floor, still keeping your voice and energy as gentle as possible. “Just—before… before you begin… Do you truly think of me as your Padawan still?”

“No,” he answers firmly. Immediately, and with less hesitation than anything he’s said so far. “I do not.”

You nod, the finality in his tone leading you to believe that’s the end of his sentence, but then he eventually lowers his voice and continues.

“But sometimes, I…” Your Master sounds conflicted, like he’s not sure he should be saying this aloud. He still hasn’t looked at you. “I find myself… wishing you were. That we could go back to those days, the days before the war. Before fighting armies, and leading them… and now recruiting them. The happiest and most fulfilling days of my life were spent with you by my side, young one. I am not telling you this in an attempt to justify or defend my actions in any way, I am telling you this simply because I don’t want an egregious misunderstanding of this magnitude to continue to fester between us when it can be addressed right here and now. In the face of incredible discomfort, I selfishly reverted the terms of our relationship back to what they were two years ago—not because I subconsciously think of you as my Padawan still or that I somehow haven’t recognized your unprecedented list of accomplishments as a Knight—but because you, the former title, and the nature of the relationship it entails were the only things familiar to me when everything else around was so incredibly and uncomfortably foreign. I humbly beg your forgiveness for ever allowing you to spend a single second of your time thinking differently, never mind hours of it.”

You blink, startled by the sudden articulation and sincerity of the apology. “I—it’s… it’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Master Kenobi softly counters, “but your forgiveness is greatly appreciated, no matter how undeserved.”

You smile at him. It’s one of those gentle, sad smiles—the kind of smile that would feel fake if it wasn’t for the comfort you’re trying to provide with it. Carefully, you place a hand on the bend of his knee. “Do you have a place you’d like to start, or would it be easier for you if I asked specific questions?”

He looks at you. Finally. For the first time, his clear blue eyes rise to meet yours and he looks… grateful. “Ask. Please. That would be so much better.”

“A ritual begins tonight,” you say after a moment, studying his handsome facial features for some kind of confirmation of the information you’ve managed to piece together, but then your Master abruptly breaks eye contact with you and lowers his gaze once more. “Yet the Sentinels historically choose not to partake. Why?”

“Because… the Ritual… contains proceedings that stand in direct opposition to the values and teachings of the Jedi,” he explains to the floor. “It goes against the core pillars of our religion to even spectate. The Uncharted Regions are… different. They follow neither the laws nor the customs of the Republic. It was decided long ago to politely decline their invitations, though we offered many times to meet during another time of the year. The Council had no idea the Queen would take this much offense.”

You have to ask. It’s important for you to know, but his rather vague explanation serves to peak your trepidation just as much as it does your curiosity. “…What is…” Maker, you’ve gone unbelievably quiet. “What is the Ritual, Master?”

Obi-Wan goes just as quiet, looking down at his hands as they fiddle idly in his lap. “Ah. Yes. That. Well, the—th-the Ritual is, uh. Uh—”

You blink softly at him and his abrupt loss of articulation, trying to rearrange your expression to be encouraging without appearing too eager.

He suddenly cuts himself off and looks up at you, pinning you with an ocean-deep blue gaze once more. “It’s a celebration of fertility.”

You blink once more at him, this time quite stupidly.

“People are encouraged to be intimate with each other. Openly. Shameless displays of fornication between two consenting adults are commonplace in almost every conceivable forum, said to permanently connect the s’Ziscari to one another through the Force—which is why they usually project throughout the act. In fact, they even have a gathering here at the palace capital, an ‘opening ceremony’ of sorts where people… perform. It’s debauchery disguised as a holiday.”

You… for some reason, the fact that he stares so intently at you while he says it makes your reaction marginally subtler. He gives away no emotion as he takes in how your mouth has formed a soft O shape, how a solemn understanding seems to flood through you. Of course he’d have incredible trouble with something like this. And somehow it’s only then that you fully forgive him for his previous mishaps and mistakes on this mission. You understand now, you get it.

“Ah. Okay. And… and in exchange for the s’Ziscari’s assistance in the Clone Wars, they want us to… _what,_ exactly?” Maker, why is your throat so dry?

“They’ve presented the ultimatum of either walking away from the deal entirely or partaking from the privacy of these chambers,” he answers. “Together.”

Okay, so your reaction is a bit more pronounced this time.

Your eyes widen for a fraction of a second, all the breath in your lungs whooshing out at once. Maker, it’s like he punched you in the chest. Muscle memory alone allows you to almost completely muffle the burst of shock that radiates through the Force, but your face is still a dead giveaway.

Is this… is this a trial? Are you hallucinating? Perhaps a vision, if it wasn’t so beyond ludicrous or had any basis in reality whatsoever. How many vaguely similar scenarios have you imagined throughout the duration of Obi-Wan’s tutelage? And yet never has one been so incredibly creative. Or elaborate.

And then, the thought suddenly hits you.

Oh. Oh, no, this is _dangerous._

It’s one thing to harbor a dark, hidden crush on your Master for years, something you refuse to even let yourself think about most of the time. It’s one thing to learn how to bury your needs deep down and refuse to let them see the light of day, to learn how to build a mental fortress around a dirty, terrible secret from your youth and guard it with a saber and matching ferocity. This is the way of the Jedi.

It’s another thing entirely to have it offered to you on a silver platter. To be given just a sample of Darkness, knowing you’ll never have anything close to it ever again.

* * *

Obi-Wan doesn’t think he’s studied your face this closely in his entire life.

It feels almost… unnatural, how meticulously he’s trying to read your expressions. Outwardly, you don’t appear to be anything more than surprised, really. Not horrified at the idea, just… stunned.

“What did you tell them?” You eventually ask him.

“That I’d need to discuss it with the Council first,” Obi-Wan answers carefully, “and then that I’d need to discuss it with you. And I’d make a decision by midnight, when the Ritual is to begin.”

And— _there._ He sees it. Your Force signature continues to radiate a gentle calmness outwards, unwavering and unbothered in its beautiful gradient of pale greens and chartreuses and golds, brilliantly contrasting with the cool blues and periwinkles of Obi-Wan’s own signature, but there’s a flash of… _something_ in your eyes, and he sees it for maybe a split second before it’s gone completely.

What did he say? What did he say? He tries quickly to remember. That he’d need to discuss it with the Council first, and then that he’d need to… 

Obi-Wan sighs, instantly realizing his mistake. He both openly admitted and proved to valuing the opinion of the Council over yours. He valued the collective opinion of a group of Jedi tens of thousands of light years away who put you in the middle of this ghastly situation more than your opinion. You. The only other person directly involved with this absolute shipwreck of a negotiation, even though you never asked to be. The person whose opinion on such a delicate situation should’ve mattered the most.

Stars, s’Zerthia was right. Has he always been this blind?

“Though… though now I realize that was incredibly dismissive of me.” Obi-Wan’s head drops and his hand comes up to cover and rub at his eyes, feeling halfway stuck between amused at his endless list of mistakes and miserable at how they’ve affected you. “I’ve done absolutely nothing right on this mission so far, young one. And you’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. The Queen of the s’Ziscari said you’re likely the best the Order has to offer and I’m very quickly beginning to see her point.”

You jerk back comically. _“She_ said that?”

He peeks an eye open at you through his fingers, watching you look at him like he’s grown two heads. “…Yes?”

“And not as an insult to the rest of the Jedi?”

Obi-Wan drags his hand down his beard, trying to hold the corners of his mouth down, but it does nothing to stop the small smile that begins to peek through. So he doesn’t try to hide it. He just smiles at you, exasperated but so incredibly fond, shaking his head meaningfully. You sit there and stare at him with your mouth hanging open, completely discombobulated, and Obi-Wan actually begins to chuckle quietly to himself, marveling at how your reaction to the praise practically doubles its sentiment.

You’re the only one who’s been able to make him truly laugh in the past two years. You did it despite his wild discomfort concerning the unfortunate situation the two of you have found yourselves in. You did it despite the foreign territory, the foreign government, the foreign planet, the foreign customs, and the foreign subject matter. And you did it all entirely unprompted, despite everything he’s done to wrong you.

“The lady in the big chair? The one with the fingernails?” You lift your hand up and wiggle your fingers, both looking and sounding like a droid in need of a hard reboot. “The fingernail lady, _she_ said this?”

“Why is that so surprising to you?” Obi-Wan asks with a gentle grin, leaning back to rest his shoulder blades against the bed, his muscles considerably less tense than they were even just two minutes ago.

“Because I don’t—? People don’t—??” You wave your hands around uselessly. “I’m not used to… _that.”_

“To what?” He prompts, still not removing his attention from your face.

“High praise? I mean—I spent years being told that I was quite possibly the _worst_ of the Jedi,” you laugh awkwardly, and then you change the subject too quickly, like you’re attempting to fill the silence before it can be read into too much. “Not to mention she looked positively delighted when I was dismissed.”

There it is again, he thinks, your eyes once more betraying your signature, tone, and countenance. He only allows himself a beat to silently vow to himself to consciously voice his recognition of your dedication and achievements more often. It’s just… with the right ratio of patience and prompting, he always thought you were such a brilliant student. Obi-Wan is unable to recall the exact moment as a teacher he began to recognize any positive trait you exhibited in his presence as simply part of your hidden, untapped given character instead of a very purposeful mindset you had to actively work to embody. Perhaps the true reason he’s so skeptical about s’Zerthia’s assertion that you care more for him than you let on is because he cannot possibly fathom why. Not when it feels like he’s spent years by your side and is only somehow only just now seeing you.

“Ah, yes, well,” Obi-Wan says, easily glossing over his quiet moment of contemplation without arousing any suspicion, “the Queen is arguably obsessed with seeing how much torture a person can endure without actually having any physical pain inflicted upon them. She gets bored, see. Not many visitors to the Uncharted Regions. She likes to play games with her guests whenever they do arrive.”

You quirk a brow at him. “Then shouldn’t she have revelled in my suffering instead of defending me because of it?”

“I’d say she’s entirely capable of doing both, especially considering just how torturous it was for me to sit there and be reminded of all the many different ways this has been so terribly unfair to you,” he admits softly. “She paid you the compliment as a direct commendation for enduring such mistreatment and still leaving the walls of her palace standing.”

Your expression goes blank again, and Maker, this is more difficult than he thought it’d be. It’s a legitimate challenge to gauge your emotional state when you’ve so clearly mastered your control over your energy signature, to a degree of which Obi-Wan was almost entirely unaware before today.

“You’re sure this is the only way?” You eventually ask. “We either do this together or we go back empty-handed? That’s it? No other options?”

Obi-Wan takes exactly zero seconds to consider the implication behind his answer before confirming your assertion with a solemn nod. “No other options. I’m sorry, young one.”

Later, he’ll reason he refused to present the Queen’s first suggestion to you because he couldn’t agree to the terms, even if you could. It would be of no use for you to share your bed with a s’Ziscari when he was incapable or unwilling to do the same. Yes, that makes… logical sense, he supposes. Right now he just has far too many things on his mind to contemplate it, and the sudden reminder of the situation he’s in causes his heart to start beating faster in his chest.

“Okay. Well…” You look uncertain, your eyebrows furrowing slightly even as your energy continues to glow soft and undisturbed from the center of your being. “Well, what are—what are your… concerns? Is there anything I could do to make this easier for you?”

Because Obi-Wan has absolutely no clue how to answer that question, he just keeps quiet. He supposes it shouldn’t be so surprising that the Uncharted Regions feature so much… uncharted territory. He truly doesn’t know how to go about this; upon explanation of the situation, he had hoped you’d supply a firm _no_ so that the burden of choice was taken away from him. He doesn’t want to offend you, but at the same time, the more you’re not directly protesting against the idea, the faster his heart begins to pound in terror at the realization that… breaking a sacred vow he’s honored his entire life is quickly becoming a very likely probability.

And also… why? Why are you able to be so… _calm_ about this? Why are you not panicking and struggling with this decision the same way he is? When s’Zerthia first suggested you’ve already broken your oath of celibacy, Obi-Wan didn’t want to believe it, yet here you are—asking him if there’s anything _you_ can do to make this easier for _him_ when _both_ of you should be having a crisis about this hypothetical. Are virgins typically so considerate? Is he just being over-dramatic about this? Is this just a manifestation of the serene hue of your saber reaffirming itself? Is this just your cool head prevailing when the one person you’ve spent years looking to for guidance is clearly on the verge of spiraling?

_Why?_ Why aren’t you _protesting_ more?

“Are we actually going to do this?” You ask after a moment, and Obi-Wan unintentionally cringes. Good Maker above, he truly doesn’t mean to. It has almost nothing to do with you—in fact, he can only assume you're genuinely trying your best to adapt to the unfortunate twist of events, and you’re actually managing to be somewhat successful where Obi-Wan is just hopelessly, miserably failing. You must be just trying to maintain some sort of base foundation for his turbulent mental state, but—but then he sees another flash of emotion in your eyes at the way he flinches away from the question.

He opens his mouth to respond—to apologize, or… stars, _something,_ but then you supply a quick reassurance instead. “I won’t—I won’t take offense, if you need me to, you know,” you shrug, very much avoiding his gaze and your voice suddenly sounding incredibly small. “I don’t know. Not make any sounds? Or hide my face? Or… something?”

“You’re…” Obi-Wan’s mind, previously struggling with far too many chaotic, rapid-fire thoughts, suddenly can’t seem to conjure a single one of them. “You’re… serious?”

“It’s not a big deal—” you quickly tell him, “—either way, we don’t have to make it a big deal. I mean, I wouldn’t want it to be… It doesn’t have to be… terrible for you, or anything.”

Maker, is that what you think? That this isn’t a ‘big deal’? He stares at you, the word you used resonating with him. _Terrible._ On one hand, of course it’s terrible—the whole thing is _terrible,_ it’s something out of an ancient Jedi parable he was told as a youngling, about the sins of passion leading to the Dark Side. On the other hand, he knows you can’t possibly mean it like that, and… you’re somehow managing to interpret this conflict all wrong. Asking him if he needs you to hide your face?

He eventually shakes his head just slightly. “I… No. No, young one, I will not…” he clears his throat, “I will not… require such a thing.”

Though neither of you say anything for quite a long time after that, the loud knock on the door still feels like it’s interrupting a crucial moment.

You quickly call that it’s open, and Obi-Wan turns his head to see the door swing forward and two s’Ziscari in thin black robes, standing in the hallway. A man and a woman.

His heart suddenly thunders against his ribcage and he scrambles to remember the hour. It can’t be midnight yet, no, he needs more _time—_

The male s’Ziscari says something in his native tongue, and the woman calmly translates to Basic. “Her Majesty the Queen formally requests your presence in the great hall for dinner and the start of the festivities.”

“Respectfully,” you nod at the guard while Obi-Wan struggles to regain himself, “if it pleases her Majesty, Master Kenobi and I would prefer to eat in our quarters tonight, as we are still discussing the nature of our potential involvement in the festivities.”

The woman repeats back your polite and much appreciated response to the guard, and he looks between you two, before clearing his throat and saying something that sounds remarkably similar to his first sentence. The translator turns back to you both. “Her Majesty formally and… _firmly_ requests your presence in the great hall for dinner and the start of the festivities.”

When you don’t respond, Obi-Wan suddenly realizes you’re waiting for him to speak.

“Very well,” he eventually sighs, reminding himself that you both are still guests on this planet. “We shall be there momentarily.”

Regardless of the language barrier, the guard appears to understand the sentiment of his response through the Force, not needing a translation. He says something and then turns to leave as the woman walks into the room, revealing a black bundle of fabric from behind her back to drape along one of the side tables. “Zashir is currently placing your ceremonial robes in your quarters, General Kenobi. If there will be nothing else?”

Maker, his _what?_ Obi-Wan’s pulse stutters. “I’m sure that—that won’t be necessary, my lady—”

“It will be,” she nods shortly. “If there will be nothing else.”

And then she spins around and walks out without bothering to wait for an answer. You blink at the closed door as Obi-Wan drops his head and pinches the bridge of his nose once more, so far beyond stressed concerning how tragically the events of this cursed mission are unfolding that he almost wants to laugh.

“Something tells me the s’Ziscari don’t like the Jedi too much,” you offer after a moment of silence.

“Nonsense,” he counters, lifting his head and sighing helplessly, apparently reverting to sarcasm when everything else he knows is all but ripped away from him. “Wherever could you have gathered that?”

Obi-Wan eventually moves to struggle up to his feet—struggle, being the key word, if only to maintain some essence of behavioral uniformity throughout these past few hours—when he suddenly feels your hand on his elbow.

He glances down at you, your soft features and gentle eyes blinking up at him in his half-standing position next to you.

“We don’t have to do this, you know,” you remind him quietly. “Either way. Not a big deal.”

It’s strange. He knows your primary intent is to put his mind at ease, but everything you’ve been saying just seems… _too_ disconnected. Good people are dying as you speak—civilians, children, innocents, you both know this, and yet… 

Perhaps… perhaps Obi-Wan is simply just too emotional right now, too chaotic. He’s certainly not being fair to you. He realizes he’s responding negatively no matter how you’re attempting to go about reassuring him, and though he recognizes it, it’s more difficult than it’s ever been to reign in his mental state.

He clears his throat. “The Queen has assured us that we are free to decline her offer and walk away at any time. Her only stipulation is that we’ll have until midnight to… i-initiate the…”

Stars. Initiate the what? Is this a self-destruct sequence? It may as well be, Obi-Wan thinks, but you nod your understanding and rise to your feet nonetheless, far more gracefully than he does.

“Well,” you sigh, walking over to the side table and pulling the black robe off of it, turning to face him and balling the silky fabric in your hands awkwardly. “Uh. I guess. Fate of the galaxy awaits, and all.”

And then he sees you wince, your subtle call-back to the beginning of this mission landing flat and clearly not contrasting well with your previous assertion to him that this is no big deal, but… for some reason the mistake and subsequent display of self-consciousness makes Obi-Wan relax just marginally. Even if you’re not necessarily panicking, at least you’re still clearly nervous, and that fact alone is more reassuring than anything anyone has said to him since this disaster first started.

“Yes,” he murmurs with a companionable, albeit hesitant smile, patting your shoulder just once before moving to leave. “The… the fate of the galaxy.”

Stars. He’s… well.

_Fucked,_ isn’t he?


	2. Dove

Obi-Wan feels like he’s going to be sick.

Dinner in the grand hall was difficult enough, forking down mouthfuls of expensive food he’s sure was absolutely marvelous, if he could’ve tasted it. The s’Ziscari clearly splurged on the celebrations—expensive food, expensive decor, expensive _everything,_ down to the silk napkin he studied and fiddled with under the table as he awkwardly waited for you to finish your plate.

He felt uncomfortable, absolutely. He’s felt uncomfortable ever since he shuffled into this blasted, Maker forsaken robe not long after he left your quarters earlier.

Not black, no. Not like yours. Not like what appears to be an overwhelmingly vast majority of the people he’s encountered so far this dreadful evening.

No, his robes are _blue_.

A strong, _eye-catching_ royal blue, covering his body in waves of fabric—softer than anything he’s ever worn before and leaving him feeling incredibly exposed. The far more practical robes he traded for these atrocious garments are made of a thick, scratchy wool, a testament to the Jedi’s philosophical rejection of fine or expensive materials. And, against all logic—to somehow make matters even _worse_ , the sash tying this uncomfortable piece of attire closed has no place to clip his saber, unlike the leather belt he usually wears. As a consequence, he’s left simply carrying it around by his side.

Granted, for some unknown reason, his robes are still far thicker and longer and more protective than the… stars, the ultra-thin black silk wrapped around your body, but Obi-Wan is so self-conscious about his appearance that he’s not even allowing himself to look at you. Obviously that doesn’t stop him from refusing to leave your side the entire night, and he finds himself rather grateful that only a very few number of s’Ziscari are fluent in Basic, if only to provide him with a valid excuse to socially detach.

Of the very few people he’s noticed wearing robes resembling his, they’re all far younger than him—much closer to your age than Obi-Wan’s, and stars, everything about this celebration is unbelievably unnerving to him—including, if not most of all, your response to it. One of the reasons he knows the food was grand, apart from the immaculate plating and lavish dinnerware of course, is because you momentarily excused yourself from the seat next to him to dish yourself out a second helping.

Even now, even in the skybox seats of this distressingly packed arena, Obi-Wan struggles to keep down what little food he could eat while you stand tall next to him and seem completely unbothered by the situation—and by the Maker, it _bothers_ him. He isn’t used to this. He’s used to _you_ being the emotionally turbulent one, the one whom he has to pacify, and it twists his stomach with the way the roles have suddenly found themselves reversed.

“I think the blue looks nice, by the way,” you lean sideways to mention casually to him, and he knows. He _knows_ you’re just jesting, just trying to lighten the mood, but he feels the bile rising up his throat at the fact that you even commented on it aloud. “Fitting. Matches your saber. Your face, though.” The smallest hint of a smile tugs at your cheeks. “It’s beginning to match the color of mine.”

“Thank you for that, young one; your sense of humor is positively delightful,” Obi-Wan gripes, clutching the metal hilt tightly in front of him with both hands while he gazes out at the stadium before him, bustling with black hooded figures and a rare flash of blue. It does not escape his notice that in complete contrast, your arms are loosely meeting behind your back, your saber dangling in one hand while the other lazily holds your wrist. Your body is… open. Draped in garments somehow equally as opaque as they are revealing, presented to the wide panoramic view of the audience and stage with no qualms whatsoever.

“Wonder who I got it from,” you ponder with a tilt of your head, and… fair point. “How long is this thing supposed to last anyways?”

“Stars— _‘this_ _thing’_ can’t get over with soon enough,” Obi-Wan grumbles, his eyes anxiously flicking down at the empty stage in the center of the audience. He’s struggling with butterflies and nausea like he himself is meant to have a starring role in this debauchery. “They’ll have… acts. Plural.”

“Heavens,” you sigh under your breath, and oh _yes._ He agrees.

He’s also painfully aware that he should be using this free time to continue contemplating his decision about… matters concerning later this evening with you, but he’s already feeling massively overwhelmed as it is. Right now, it’s all he can do to just breathe and attempt to face one trial at a time.

But then, as if the Maker is feeling just particularly malicious this evening, Obi-Wan’s stomach drops when something quiet flashes in the Force and the roar of the enormous crowd instantly falls to dead silence. The ominous sign rockets through him and while a Jedi should not know fear, this might be the closest he’s ever felt to truly terrified.

 _“_ Ooh, _dramatic,”_ you whisper, but regardless of your laissez-faire attitude, his heart is positively pounding as he watches the figures of robed Force sensitives slowly file out onto the stage, and everything inside him lurches at the realization that—

They’re all wearing blue. Every single one of them is clothed in fabric that matches his current attire, the one that made him feel like a blot on the landscape the entire dinner and subsequent mass pilgrimage to the arena. A bright splash of color in the midst of an almost inescapably giant ring of black.

You’ve stopped talking. Truly, he has no idea if that’s a good or bad thing, not right now. The Force sensitives join hands and create a ring in the center of the stage while every single person in the arena sits in perfect silence, and Obi-Wan feels _dizzy._ He’s not getting enough air right now, but he doesn’t even want to breathe too loudly and somehow draw even more attention to himself.

Two of the blue robes break off from their fellow acolytes and meet in the middle of the circle, and to simply avoid having a heart attack, Obi-Wan very purposefully chooses to ignore—like he’s done multiple times this evening—the subtle flicker of curiosity he experiences at the significance of the color blue and what it symbolizes to the s’Ziscari. He can’t even bear to watch the way the two of them slowly lean in and allow their lips to touch from under their hoods.

Maker, if he turned his saber on and stabbed himself with it, could he convince you it was an accident? Probably not—no, _definitely_ not, what a stupid thought to have—

“How does she wipe?” He hears your voice whisper, and Obi-Wan’s facial expression immediately screws up in confusion.

He turns to you, his tone equally hushed but the bewilderment sharpening his consonants. “How does who _what—?”_

Only—you’re not even looking at the scene unfolding in front of you. Your expression is just as confused as his is, but instead of looking down, your chin is lifted and you’re staring directly across the arena at the viewing booth opposite to yours. He still has no idea what you’re talking about though, not until he follows your line of sight and sees the way s’Zerthia has her jaw propped up in her hands on her throne, looking bored as usual, and how the length of her newly manicured fingernails curves halfway up her scalp from this angle.

“That’s dangerous,” you remark quietly. “They’re like talons. Gaudy little weapons she always has attached to her that she decorates, makes them seem less vicious than they actually are. I see them. I certainly don’t envy whoever she picks tonight to—”

You cut yourself off with a bit lip smile and turn your face away from him, and Obi-Wan is almost mystified by how casual you’re able to be about this. 

“Whomever she picks to…?” He trails off with a sigh. “Do I… Do I _want_ to know?”

“Never mind,” you tell him quickly, lifting your chin once more while still clearly trying not to laugh. You’re trying not to _laugh_ , while… while _that_ is happening in the center of the audience. “It was, uh… tasteless.”

He blinks, wondering what that could possibly mean. Everything about this is tasteless, the entire thing is just an absolute nightmare coming to life.

Though, after a moment of silence, Obi-Wan soon realizes he much prefers it when you fill the void.

“Members of the Royal Court take turns doing it for her,” he eventually replies, decidedly looking anywhere but where the man is slipping the blue robe from the woman’s body. It takes you a second to register to what exactly he’s referring, but when you finally do, you snort. It’s too loud. A few heads closest to your isolated seats turn as Obi-Wan very quickly thrusts his elbow into your ribs. “Quit being disrespectful,” he hisses under his breath.

“You just—!” You quickly clamp your mouth shut and face forward again, trying not to smile in an appalled sort of way. But then— _“Oh,”_ you blurt, not loud enough for anyone else to hear in this open setting but still loud enough for him to glance around and be slightly anxious about it. “Oh. Wow. I wasn’t… expecting…”

Obi-Wan’s eyes automatically flick down to the couple, only just long enough to catch a quick glimpse of stark nudity in the center of the arena before his gaze immediately bounces back up again and focuses on the incredibly interesting steel beam currently propping up the Queen’s viewing box, clearing his throat. “I… _did_ warn you.”

“Well, yeah, I expected them to…” Your hushed voice trails off and you stay quiet for too long, too long to imply you’re still formulating an end to your thought. You’re distracted by something, but then you appear to snap back to your senses and immediately clear your throat. “I just wasn’t expecting… the, uh. The… positioning.”

He says nothing in response. It… it doesn’t give him great comfort, wondering how you could possibly know enough about this type of profanity to have expected a _different_ sort of positioning. The stark contrast between the color of his ceremonial robes and yours still remains completely unspoken, but it quietly pulls at the back of his mind nonetheless.

“What about it?” Obi-Wan immediately hears himself prompt and oh, no, this is completely inappropriate. Not only should he not be encouraging this kind of talk with you, but he also shouldn’t feel so… so negative, not about something so personal to you and something that’s certainly none of his business. Regardless, he… still has this buried, unexplainable desire to know the truth about it. Regardless of the indirect way he’s attempting to go about it, he wants to know the truth about whether or not you broke your oath, and while he recognizes it’s _completely_ improper of him, the urge is still strong enough to manifest itself using his vocal cords.

“Oh, I don’t know, it’s just… It’s…” He doesn’t even have a visual reference for what you’re attempting to find the words to describe. He doesn’t want to. He just wants to know what you think about it. “…Bold,” you finally settle on.

Bold. It’s bold _._ Perhaps Obi-Wan wouldn’t be analyzing your verbal responses so closely if he had something more interesting to look at besides the general coliseum-like structure of the large outdoor stadium, but there’s a certain horizon he just won’t let his eyes dip below right now and unfortunately for him, being so high up above the crowd, the upper hemisphere of his visual field remains relatively dull.

“Who would've thought,” he eventually sighs, blinking up at the star-splattered sky now and attempting to see if he can use the Force to break off a piece of a satellite and have it impale him in a tragic accident. “Considering the s’Ziscari are such a conservative bunch.”

His eyes soon wander back to s’Zerthia, and—Obi-Wan startles to find her staring directly at him with a thin eyebrow dangerously quirked. She motions two long fingers in a V shape at her eyes and then points down towards the stage, her expression expectant and waiting.

Obi-Wan’s teeth hurt at how hard he clenches them together, his jaw flexing but the thick blanket of his beard doing well to conceal it. She’s playing with him, he realizes; he can see the hidden smile on her lips all the way from here.

Maker, maybe she’s right. Maybe he’s—maybe he’s being ridiculous about this. This is fine. This is _fine._ His stomach feels like it’s all his food might come up at any second, but he’ll do it, he’ll look. He can at least just look, right?

His gaze slowly begins lowering, trying to take in just a few things at a time so as not to overstimulate himself. Thousands of s’Ziscari lining the seats of the arena, almost every single one of them dressed in black. Lower still—the platform leading up to the stage. A perimeter of blue figures now sitting down in a circle and then, at its center, a… a naked man and woman.

Obi-Wan’s heart pounds as he struggles to comprehend the sight, never having laid eyes on a nude woman before. She’s on her elbows and knees, forehead lowered and resting against the floor, and the man kneels behind her, one hand holding her hips and the other wrapping around his—

Stars, Obi-Wan wants to end it all. Right here. His aim will be true.

But then… oh, no, he’s an idiot. He’s a complete dullard, because he forgot. Consumed by his own sheer anxiety and unease, Obi-Wan stupidly forgot an extremely crucial detail of the incredibly little he’s been told about the Sh’inzith.

—the _projecting._

All at once, he’s nearly knocked over by the strength of the two Force sensitives at the center of the arena as they deliberately cast their minds out across the entire audience, presenting every sensation and fleeting thought they’re experiencing in all its intensity. Obi-Wan immediately works to reinforce his mental shields as soon as he feels the shockwave about to hit, but there’s thousands of Force sensitives present—all of them congregated into one relatively small area, all of them tuning into the same two signatures and then suddenly… _amplifying_ them back until it’s impossible for him to shut out.

“Oh, uh—” he just manages to hear you mutter through the whirlwind, just the slightest hint of panic in your voice peaking through the symphony of whispered thoughts and pulsing sensations coming from the stage, “— _that_ isn’t good—”

Obi-Wan abruptly stumbles backwards and gasps at the awful, _wretched_ feeling of something brunt pressing up hard against somewhere elusive, somewhere he’s never felt before towards the lower part of his body, and his mind fights viciously against it as he feels you spin around and reach out for his rapidly retreating figure.

“Wait, no—it’s okay, M-Master, it’s okay, it’s—” your voice cuts off and your hands suddenly fist into the robes at his chest, your forehead dropping to his shoulder against the sharp sting just continuing to push and push and _push_ , “—i-it’s okay, it’s oka—”

He trips over his feet in the chaos and falls back on complete instinct and you’re so tightly attached to him that you’re yanked forwards with the momentum, the two of you plunging to the ground in a clumsy heap of grunts and tangled limbs. Obi-Wan immediately starts crawling backwards across the floor underneath you, still trying to escape the horrible, inescapable sensation digging into a part of his body that doesn’t seem to exist, but it’s like you’re of the same mind—you’re scrambling forwards in the same direction trying to get away from the same thing, frantically attempting to calm him and simultaneously deal with the agony yourself, and then suddenly—

Oh—oh, _Maker—_

Suddenly something gives and _surges_ in, and then Obi-Wan gasps—his elbows buckling under him and as the both of you drop down onto the floor because stars, it’s nearly _blinding_ with impression. Not only the aching, hard fullness stretching sharp and deep somewhere in his lower abdomen—but now a new sensation. A tight, wet silk he feels swallowing him between his legs, concentrated on a part of his body that… _does_ exist, a body part that’s currently pressed up right between your spread thighs.

 _“Fuck,”_ you moan hot against his throat, trying to find somewhere to brace yourself next to his shoulders and push yourself up off him, and he tries—Maker, he tries _so_ hard not to, but his hands shoot out to grab your hips before he even knows what he’s doing and then he’s _dragging_ his lower body up into yours on instinct alone, clamping his eyes shut and groaning out a desperate sound he’s never heard himself make before as his head drops against the floor.

It’s staggering. It _hurts._ He can't even hear your muffled noises anymore, not over the roaring encompassing his mind and body. All he knows is that your hips quickly jerk back and grind down into his in response, sending Obi-Wan reeling while you bury your twisted cry of pleasure and pain into his neck.

The sound of it breaks through everything else.

Obi-Wan’s hands shake violently as they suddenly release you and then frantically shove at your shoulders, trying to push you off without hurting you. He can’t think, he can’t see, he needs to _leave—_

“Get away,” he rasps desperately up at the sky, blinking his eyes wide but somehow not seeing anything in front of him but blackness. “St-stars, get _away_ from me _—”_

Suddenly you’re flipping off his body and onto your back next to him, too quick for it to be a mechanical movement alone, and he doesn’t even have the space in his mind nor the processing capacity to figure out if he Force pushed you off him or if it was you who did it to yourself. He just clambers to his feet and stumbles away in a terrified, graceless retreat, bent in half, limping and gasping and fighting for every step he takes.

* * *

Your Master was right to leave as soon as possible, you think. You were wrong to linger here for just a second to try and gain your bearings, because the more you work to grasp and attempt to organize them, the more mindless and disorienting they become.

You eventually have to heave over and drag yourself after him.

The further away you get from the arena, the easier it becomes to block the projection, but _Maker,_ it’s exhausting. You’re resigned to start out with a crawl—one of those Jedi Core crawls you haven’t had to do since the Academy but this one exponentially slower, forehead dropped down and eyes closed, just focusing on alternating shifting your elbows and your knees forwards and dedicating the rest of your mental energy to just isolating your mind from the debilitating assault.

Consulars don’t usually see much of war—you tend to do absolutely everything in your power to avoid it. It’s the Guardians who experience the horrors of combat most often, who deal with ambushes and onslaughts from enemies of the Republic. But Maker above, every merciless thrust into that poor little virgin at the center of the arena is like a blaster shooting directly at you, but then couple it with the thousands of reflections and ricochets in robes lining the bleachers? You’re in the trenches of a deadly battle you had no idea was even about to break out and you have no weapon of defense besides retreat.

When you finally get far enough away to be able to push yourself upright as much as possible and continue staggering back to the palace on two feet, you have no concept for how long it’s been. You can still feel the projection vibrating and clawing sharply at the edges of your consciousness, but at least the majority of your thoughts are your own now, and it gradually becomes easier and easier to focus and speed up to a clumsy run.

Though, no matter how successful you eventually are at muffling the vibrant sensations and thoughts of the two Force sensitives behind you—when they cum, you stumble down to your knees again and have to bite the back of your fist to keep from screaming.

Maker, it takes you a minute to recover. You don’t even cum, you just _feel_ it—the _burst_ of energy from the Force in every direction, the violent explosion from the stadium that feels like it should fracture the ground beneath you.

You’re able to get up after a moment, if only because they decide to take mercy and finally cut off the projection. You know that it’s a temporary relief, that they’ll likely be at this all night, but you hope the palace will be far enough away from the arena to block out the sensations completely. You wonder if Master Kenobi felt that through the Force or whether he was too determined to block it out that he was able to simply ignore the nuclear missile that just detonated less than a few miles away from him.

You force yourself forwards and you want to hurry, you do—but strangely, in your wild state of exhaustion, stark reality is almost as debilitating as swimming through that endless madness was. It’s quiet around you but the noise of still air pulses deafeningly in your eardrums after breaking free from such a thick mental filter separating you from your surroundings. You still have your lightsaber clutched in your hand, Maker rejoice, and your thin robes are skewed awkwardly across your body, but you eventually find your way to the doors of the palace.

Though, trying to navigate the empty halls back to your Master’s chambers takes you longer than it should. His signature is cloaked spectacularly, concealed to a mere speck you wouldn’t even know was there if you weren’t so closely acquainted with it for more than a decade. You follow the flickering pixel of blue light through the obstacle ridden darkness, adjusting the front of your robes with one trembling hand while you wipe your brow with the other, closing your eyes and doing your best to take deep breaths. He’ll be spiraling right now. He’ll need a boulder to cling to in this tsunami, solid ground to stand on while the stars are falling out of the sky.

You… find him in your quarters instead.

The door is open and his handsome profile is to you, the thick fabric stretching over his broad shoulders now an agreeable light cream, familiar and telling of his intentions. His hands are moving. Setting something down on your bed—your robes, you soon realize. He’s laying out your Jedi robes neatly for you across the fur blanketing the large mattress.

Master Kenobi begins speaking as soon as you step foot into the room, the tone of his voice very clearly impatient after having waited for you for so long.

“Change out of those ridiculous garments,” he tells you hastily, neatly laying out your leather belt across your dark tunic without even turning his head to look at you properly. “We must leave. Quickly. Also—tell me you didn’t forget your saber at the arena, because if so, I’m afraid it’s lost to us forever now. Ilum is only three days from here, perhaps we can stop there on the way back to Coruscant to find you another kyber cryst—”

You drop the hilt of your lightsaber on the floor and step forward, cautiously reaching out for his figure as he continues to ramble. “Master, I—”

Your hand is thrown to the side with a subtle flick of his wrist and you instantly jerk to an abrupt halt, holding your palms out in front of you and keeping completely still while he spins around, his jaw slack and staring at you wide-eyed. He takes a few steps away from you in shock.

“I’m sorry—” he immediately gasps, reaching out towards you even though the rest of his body is still desperately evading yours. “Stars, I’m so sorry—that was just… That was _excruciating,_ young one _._ Why would anyone ever willingly—?”

“It—it doesn’t always—” you cut yourself off just in time, clamping your jaw shut before you can finish your sentence.

“We must leave,” he says once more as he turns back to your mattress, not appearing to hear you at all and shaking his head, far too frantic to sound like he’s just reminding you alone. “We can’t do that. _I_ can’t do that—”

“It doesn’t always have to be—” Maker, what is _wrong_ with you? Your heart kicks up in your chest and somehow stutters to a halt at the same time. It’s the lingering effects of the assault your mind just experienced coupled with your desperate urge to console him that’s making you so utterly careless, you realize, it’s making your tongue loose.

“Stars, what do you _mean?”_ Master Kenobi finally snaps, and your blood runs ice cold. “How do you _know that?”_

It takes the sum of all your years of training to keep the raging hurricane of emotion from showing in any capacity. You feel like he’s holding his saber to your neck with how dangerously little you’re even allowing yourself to breathe right now, how utterly and completely still you’re holding yourself in front of him.

 _Lie_ , a little voice in your mind supplies quietly, the little voice you keep locked inside an impenetrable box of everything you are but have never been allowed to confront, haven’t been allowed to openly _think_ just in case someone is listening too closely. _Lie. Lie, right now. Your silence is giving you away._

Only—you can’t. You _shouldn’t._ It’s not fair to keep this from him, not when you’re asking him to do something so structurally compromising to his belief system. If… if you tell him the truth, perhaps he won’t judge you too harshly. Perhaps he’ll feel… reassured, knowing he’s certainly not the first Jedi to break a sacred vow when he felt times were desperate enough.

Besides. This might be the only secret that could potentially get you kicked out of the Order, but… it still isn’t your worst one.

“Because.” The word is out of your mouth before you can rethink it, barely above a whisper. “I… know.”

He doesn’t respond, and no.

No, you were wrong. You were wrong to tell him the truth, and the look on his face immediately shoots panic through your whole body.

He doesn’t look reassured.

He looks… alienated.

“‘It doesn’t _always?’”_ Your Master eventually repeats back to you, and _fuck—_ the implication is instantly clear. The implication is made so clear from the sharpness in his tone, the hard edge to it as he rounds out the vowels in the last word that makes your heart twist and throb in your ribcage. He might as well have just asked you how many times you must’ve violated your code of honor to know the difference.

“It’s not.” You clear your throat and flick your gaze up to the ceiling, feeling like he’s using the Force to squeeze your chest in on itself. “That was the absolute _worst_ possible sensation that can be felt during… It’s—it’s not like that. It won’t… be like that. Not.” Are there tears coming to your eyes? “Not… with me.”

Utter quiet. So quiet that if you really concentrate, you can hear the distant sounds of the arena continuing on with the Ritual without you. You bite hard at your lip and wait for him to say something, anything. Yell at you, tell you how disgusted he is, banish you from the Order.

Instead, Master Kenobi quite suddenly… deflates. He sighs—not a heavy, exhausted one, but a soft one. A quiet, accepting sort of sound.

He slowly lowers himself to the edge of the mattress and closes his eyes, running both hands through his hair, and it’s just enough to give you pause. You glance over at him, trying not to let tears fall beyond the plateau of your lower lids with the frantic downward movement of your eyes, and you’re only just barely successful at it.

“It’s alright,” he says gently. “It’s… it’s alright, young one. I… suppose I am in no place to judge. Quite… quite literally,” he murmurs, gesturing to the space around him with a lazy wave of his hand. Maker, his figure is too watery and unfocused to make out his facial expressions, but you don’t want to blink to clear your vision just in case a sudden downpour escapes. “It’s none of my business and I shouldn’t have asked. You’re… not my Padawan anymore. I should have no reason to… even care at all, really.”

There’s something that feels… major in that, something monumental yet incredibly well hidden, but you’re still too full of blind panic to interpret it further. Your breathing is shaky and you wonder, quite stupidly and not for the first time in your life, if it’s somehow possible to use the Force to evaporate the water in your eyes before it turns into tears.

“I am certain it took place in your younger years, a long time ago,” he continues calmly when you don’t immediately say anything. “You did always have a… a rather unconventional relationship with the rules.” 

Your only response is a quick jerk of a nod. Yes.

“Yes,” you immediately agree, hoping your tone sounds convincing enough through the lingering tremors. “It was… a long time ago. I’ve changed, since then. Grown up in many ways.”

It’s his turn to nod, and you manage to calm down just slightly. You’re still breathing too hard and you’re a bit too braced, too much of a stance to truly feel like relief, but your heart rate is beginning to settle back into a somewhat acceptable rhythm.

Master Kenobi looks over at you, and he says absolutely nothing about the traces of water still glistening along your eyelashes. He just smiles softly and pats the space next to him.

You cautiously make your way over to him after a moment, feeling more unsure now than you’ve felt this entire mission. You leave at least a half a foot of space separating the two of you once you carefully sit yourself down on the mattress, and you can’t even look in his general direction. You just focus on the long, draping sleeves of your black robe as you look down at your hands and wait for him to speak first.

“Sometimes,” he eventually sighs. “Sometimes I… feel like you’re the person I know best in the entire galaxy, you know. I’ve… I’ve known you far longer than I ever knew my own Master, young one. I picked you out of thousands, and I’d do it thousands of times again. Sometimes—especially since the day of your accolade and subsequent absence, I feel like I can know exactly what you’re thinking, even from across an entire star system. And yet somehow, you… always surprise me. Even after all these years, I am just. Consistently surprised by you.”

You don’t know how to take that. You just sit there in a guilty silence, still unable to turn your head or offer any sort of response.

“I chose you as a Padawan _because_ you surprised me, you know,” he reminds you quietly. “I had certain expectations for you, and you did not meet those expectations. Instead, you presented an alternative I’d never before considered, an alternative that forced me to reevaluate you—and by extension, myself—far beyond what I had previously. That is not a bad thing. It has never been a bad thing. As is made blatantly obvious by the fact that _I_ ’ _m_ the one currently standing in the way of saving lives, and you’re…not.”

Maker, this is thin ice. You don’t know what to say that’ll express hesitant agreement with his sentiment without making it sound like you’re not apologetic for breaking your oath. You’re… well, you’re _not_ , not really. His response itself is causing you to feel far more turmoil than any legitimate regret for your actions.

“It was—” On instinct, you almost say it was a mistake regardless of the conflicts you’re just so happening to encounter on this mission, but something stops you. You suddenly remember your place here, your goal. To save the galaxy from the Separatists’ reign. And, by extension… sleep with your Master. You can’t call it a mistake if you’re going to ultimately try to convince him to do the same thing. So instead, you scramble to finish your sentence with a different thought, knowing his full attention is pinned to you right now. “…A long time ago,” is all your exhausted mind is able to come up with.

“Yes,” he gives you a small, companionable smile. “It’s alright. Your prior lapse—or, well… _lapses_ in judgement… will forever be safe with me.”

And still, you don’t feel relief. Not when Master Kenobi very quickly appears to look uncertain.

“I… apologize,” he offers after a moment, “if. If I ever made you feel like… like you could not confide in me about any struggles or… or _urges_ you may have been experienc—”

“Maker,” you suddenly interrupt with a frantic wave of your hands, everything cringing inside you, “Maker, we don’t have to do this. None of it, it’s okay. Know what? Let’s just go home—screw the galaxy, I don’t care, just stop talking.”

He snaps his eyes over to you, a sudden bark of laughter escaping him before the rest of his face even seems to register something was funny.

It evolves. Eventually he’s covering his face and stifling ridiculous little snorts behind his hands, trying to apologize in between the chuckles but laughing even harder. It’s almost like… just a form of pure stress relief for him. So far beyond traumatized that it’s revealing itself in a slightly hysterical way, even if what you said wasn’t hysterical at all.

“Now you have a mere glimpse into what my experience has been like today,” he finally tells you with a sparkling grin once he composes himself, lifting his chin as he looks at you and scratching his beard with a quiet flicking sound. “Shall I keep going? If this mission has taught me anything, it’s that no matter what, things can always get worse.”

“They don’t have to.” You say it without thinking, the gentle reprieve caused by his laughter flowing through you in waves and making you throw caution to the wind. The four words serve to shut him up quite quickly however, even though it was the opposite of your intent, and your smile drops. Maker, just freely conversing with him about these things is navigating a minefield for his mental state.

“You… you say that, and yet even—” Master Kenobi eventually responds, cutting himself off with a cough. “Even the things I’ve heard are meant to feel… pleasant _,_ were just.” He shakes his head and blinks his crystal blue eyes over at you. “By all accounts. Agony.”

“I know,” you nod. “I know. Projecting _that_ specific situation was… sadistic of them. A distortion of the truth. Probably rooted in deep tradition, but also a great scare tactic if I ever saw one, playing with us by presenting the absolute worst of it before anything else. It won’t hurt. At all. I promise. In fact—I-I can make it feel—”

Maker, you don’t even finish your sentence, but you must think the general idea loud enough for him to understand. You don’t actually have a specific word in mind—good, great, amazing, euphoric?—and yet, something quiet settles over you two at the silent implication, the mere whisper of the possibility of you pleasuring him.

And him… allowing it.

“Master, I—”

“Don’t,” he quickly tells you. “Don’t call—You don’t have to… call me that. Just for right now, it’s. I don’t—” he takes a breath that sounds shakier than it looks, and then he paints an easy, fake smile on his face following the exhale. You recognize that smile anywhere, though. While you’ve never seen him wear it before, it’s the smile that politicians make when they’re about to present a lesser truth to you, a smile shown to you in negotiations all the time that signifies something… hidden. He’s hiding something, something important, and you have no idea what it could possibly be. “I don’t feel like I even deserve to be called that right now, young one. Perhaps you should be the Master, and I the learner.”

“Ah yes, the circle is now complete,” you can’t help but jest in return, wanting to keep the tone light even though the subject matter is heavy. “Is now when we trade lightsabers?”

“Indeed,” he smiles, this time more sincere, and… you can’t pinpoint when exactly it happened, but it appears you’re physically closer to each other now than you were when you first sat down.

“Do they, uh… actually expect us to…” You clear your throat and wave a hand around, “…Project the entire time like that?”

Master Kenobi quickly shakes his head. “No. s’Zer— _Queen_ s’Zerthia informed me that. Ah. For us, projection will only be necessary during the… well, she called it the ‘closing ceremonies.’”

Your eyebrows shoot up and you nod. “I… see.”

It’s like you can physically feel his body start to break out into a cold sweat next to you at the sudden… realness of it all, the realization that it has to be getting late. Close to midnight, if you’re not already pushing it. It’s come time to make a final decision, you both know it. You want to console him, offer him some kind of solace or reprieve, but stars, you just don’t know _how,_ not when you’re this much of a mess about this, too, but for entirely different reasons _._ You don’t have a single clue how to make him feel better about any of this.

“I just,” you rush before you lose the nerve, “I want you to know that—e-even if you feel like you’re somehow alone in this, you’re not. Okay? I’m… I’m really nervous, too. I don’t… I don’t actually know what to do at all right now. I don’t know whether to respect your apprehension or tell you it’s unfounded. I don’t know if I should remind you what’s at stake here or whether I should avoid mentioning it at all costs. I have no idea what position I should take, but I’ll—I’ll take whichever one you want me to.”

And it’s odd, because when you first launched into your confession, Master Kenobi gradually began to look more and more relieved, but at a certain point, something just goes horribly wrong. You don’t know what you said, but whatever it was, it seems to rocket through your Master and suddenly his breathing stutters.

For a moment, you think he’s going to reach back, yank your neatly folded Jedi robes up from the mattress and push the dark fabric into your hands. Tell you he’ll meet you at the docking bay posthaste, tell you not to linger, tell you that the mission was a failure. But then—

“Before,” he suddenly says, the word almost startling you with how abrupt it comes out sounding. Almost like he wasn’t quite expecting himself to say it either. “Earlier today, you asked… you asked if there was anything you could do to… make this easier.”

“Yes,” you prompt immediately. He won’t look at you, and for some reason your heart begins beating faster and the inside of your thighs are getting warm.

“I… I’m not sure I’ll be able to go through with this,” he admits with a whisper, his voice sounding so quietly reluctant, like he doesn’t want to say the words aloud but is forcing himself to. “But… the Council put you in charge of negotiations.”

Your eyebrows furrow, trying to understand his implication. What does that have to do with anything? Is he saying that you’re supposed to be in charge, and therefore he’s defaulting to you? “I’m not sure I—”

“The _Galactic Republic_ …” Master Kenobi enunciates very, very pointedly, still unable to look at you, “…put _you_ in charge of negotiations.”

Specifying—or in this case, generalizing—doesn’t help much. “I’m still not—”

“Maker, for—for the good of the Republic, young one,” he presses under his breath and finally flicks his gaze up to meet yours, sounding urgent and torn in equal parts. _“Negotiate.”_

Stars, negotiate with who? With—with _him?_ For the good of the…? Is he asking you to somehow reason with him beyond what you’ve attempted to do already, or persuade him to do what’s right for—?

Maker—Master Kenobi is asking you to seduce him.

Shock paints your expression blank and his eyes instantly evade yours once more. You have to sit there for just a second and double-check that you’re not dreaming. None of this seems real. All of it seems like an incredibly elaborate illusion of the Force, ever since you first laid eyes on him at the start of this mission. You know you missed him but stars, did you truly miss him this terribly? Your longing must rival something fierce to unconsciously conjure this wild of a scenario. Is he actually here right now? Have you been speaking to a ghost? Are _you_ actually here right now? Are you going to wake up any second and remember he’s thousands of lightyears away and has been for years, risking his life on the front lines of galactic war while you’re left to play politics and negotiate treaties behind the scenes?

These thoughts aren’t safe to have in normal interactions with him, but nothing about this situation is normal, and while you know Master Kenobi has years of experience reading your signature, he most likely won’t be able to gauge the specific details of your thoughts when you can sense how intensely he’s focused on guarding his own chaotic mind from you.

So you let yourself think. If only for a second, you sit next to him and allow yourself to just… think about him. About how much you care for him, how desperately you ache for him—you let all these improper longings finally have their moment with you. You let yourself confront it, crack the lid of the hidden box tucked away behind your consciousness and brave it, because if there was ever a moment to do so, it’s right now.

Your heart starts slamming up against your ribcage and your hands feel like they’re tingling. He wants you to convince him to have sex with you. He’s _asking_ you to corrupt him. He wants you to negotiate the galaxy’s survival with the last man standing in the way of its prosperity—a good man with strong, immovable morals, a man who understands the consequences that follow integrity around and won’t be easy to tempt.

“This was a bad idea,” suddenly comes Master Kenobi’s voice, quickly backpedaling after too long of a silence. “I shouldn’t have said that. Forget I said that, we should just g—”

“Would you like to meditate?” You immediately ask him on a complete whim, shuffling back towards the middle of the mattress for the second time today. You’re careful to make sure he doesn’t see you carelessly flick your neat robes to the floor with the Force, clearing the top of the large mattress. “Let’s meditate.”

“Stars,” he breathes, shyly his head turning to follow you, “I’d love nothing more, but there truly just isn’t any time—”

You find it easier than you thought it’d be to pull a playful face at him, crossing your legs and straightening your spine. “Please, you’re a _Guardian._ You blue sabers practically invented battle meditation, did you not?”

He looks skeptical for a moment, as he has a valid right to be. “Is this a battle?” He eventually asks over his shoulder.

You say nothing in response to that, instead using the Force with a flex of your finger to tug at the loose cream fabric of his robe at his elbow. “Come on, it’ll do us good.”

He looks conflicted for a second, but then ultimately decides to humor you. “Alright,” Master Kenobi finally agrees, turning around and crawling towards you on the mattress, and you’re just quick enough to stamp down a flicker of arousal at the mere sight of it. “It won’t hurt.”

“Of course it won’t,” you agree with just a bit too much air in your voice, but he doesn’t seem to notice it. He just seats himself directly in front of you, facing you, crossing his legs close enough to yours that your knees barely touch, and—

—Maker, he’s lovely.

You purposefully let yourself think it as his eyes slowly fall closed and he takes a deep breath, beginning to tame the wild tempest of his mind. You let the word flitter around your thoughts without instantly repressing it like you always do, and just the mere act of allowing yourself to acknowledge the truth is freeing. He’s lovely. He’s lovely. You could scream it.

Your eyes trail down the lines of his ever softening, tranquil expression, not even bothering to pretend to meditate for his benefit this time. Your gaze roams shamelessly across his face, the way his hair is combed back away from it. The sandy, masculine beard leading down to the thick column of his throat, the broad lines of his shoulders draped in pale fabric, the way his chest slowly moves as he breathes. Lovely. Lovely.

And then you go… lower.

His abdomen is stretched long with how upright he’s sitting, his flawless meditation posture. His thighs are spread wide in this position, pants stretched tight into an elusive drum over his crotch and preventing you from truly seeing anything—but _stars_ is it a thrill even just letting yourself look. 

Especially knowing that the more his mind works to compose itself, the easier it’ll be for him to hear you.

You keep thinking, growing bolder the more you’re left alone with this box wide open. You think about how lithe and strong his body is, how it would feel under your hands. You think about all the different things you want to show him, all the… the mind shattering pleasure you can give him if he’ll allow y—

Master Kenobi says your name without opening his eyes.

It doesn’t sound the way you expect, though you don’t really know what you expected it to sound like. A sharp, frustrated bark? An exasperated, pleading attempt to get you to stop?

No—none of those. It’s a quiet, low growl of a sound, and the clear warning in it absolutely burns a hole through you like he picked up his lightsaber and used it instead.

You take practiced breaths, trying to calm yourself down. Stars, he just said your name, he’s said it so many times before, and yet hearing it in his mouth with that tone in this context feels like he just strapped rockets to your ankles and told you to stay put. You’re impatient. You’re turning yourself on, working yourself up, trying to get to where you can actually make a move on him after dedicating so many years to desperately repressing the longing to do so. Once he told you to negotiate this deal with him, however, it’s as if every ounce of the impeccable self control you’ve practiced so spectacularly throughout most of your life slowly started to unravel.

Reaching out tentatively so as not to startle him, you wrap both of your palms around the bend of his knees and squeeze gently. Master Kenobi displays no physical signs of—well, _anything_ really, keeping his body completely rigid under your hands with no noticeable alterations in his breathing pattern. Biting your lip, you begin to slowly rotate your thumbs, making sure to keep your movements slow and perfectly symmetrical. Complete relaxation is your ultimate goal here—coaxing your Master into a serene state where physical contact is desired, not obligatory. He's so uncomfortable with the concept of intimacy in and of itself though, from the way his eyebrows start to furrow and his spine begins gradually tilting back and away from you, it's almost as if your ministrations are dampening rather than fueling.

“Relax,” you murmur, and stars, even though you make it sound quiet and gentle, it’s like the melodic lull of your voice appears to startle him more than if you’d just spoken normally. Maker—it’s counterintuitive; how are you supposed to turn someone on when the mere state of being turned on turns them _off?_ “Relax with me, it’s okay—”

“But I just _can't_ , young one,” he suddenly implores, his voice pressed up tight in his throat, his cerulean eyes popping open in frustration and something else—an honest, heartfelt emotion that's strikingly less familiar to you, even after years spent by his side: deep, hot, stomach-wrenching guilt. You watch your Master’s palms run the length of his thighs; back and forth, back and forth—almost like a nervous tick, you think—and it’s oddly endearing, if not increasingly concerning. “I just _can't_ , this is all so _wrong_. Don't you understand? E-Even if the Council did provide a—well, a rather admittedly _ineluctable_ blessing for this downright ludicrous endeavor, i-it’s… I don't…” He takes a deep breath, and visually, it looks like he's attempting to collect his thoughts and composure, but you know your Master all too well. You know what he's really doing, and at this point, it's almost… frustrating.

“What are you so afraid of?” You clutch his knees and whisper quietly, interrupting him before he can verbalize whatever perfectly logical reason he's trying to formulate as to why you both should leave the planet immediately, what he's going to say to the Council if they ever inquire as to why negotiations ultimately failed. He jerks his head up sharply to look at you.

“The Jedi fear nothing,” is his automatic response, though his previously intense gaze strays slightly from yours after a second of too much eye contact. “Fear is the path to the Dark Side, you know this.”

“And yet you are afraid,” you remark calmly, studying the way he’s turned his face away from you completely now, how you can still see his jaw clench under the thick beard with his profile shown to you like this. “I—I’m trying to understand, Master, but I—I don’t. Even if this mission were half as important as it is, your loyalty to the Order would follow you right into an early grave. But this?” You remove a palm from his knee to gesture between the two of you, the mattress beneath the both of you, “fulfilling _this_ mission and _these_ terms to save the entire galaxy is too ‘downright ludicrous’ for the Great Negotiator? I don’t believe it. Tell me what you’re really afraid of.”

Only, he’s suddenly moving—away from you. Turning and planting his palms to fur, beginning to climb to the edge of the bed and sweep his legs around under him, and your voice has an unintentional edge to it when you address his back.

“Do you know how many lives over I owe you?” You ask, and he jerks to an abrupt halt, feet just shy of stepping on the floor. “Do you have any idea the stockpile of mortal gratitude you’ve amassed from me? How many times you’ve risked your death to save me from mine over the years—can you count them? I have. I know my debt to you, I know the weight of my life piled on top of itself over and over again. I remember each and every one of them like they happened yesterday, and not once did you hesitate even slightly, let alone the way you’ve hesitated today.”

”And _?”_ Master Kenobi quite suddenly snaps over his shoulder as he grips the edge of the mattress, sounding sharp but not necessarily directed towards you. “What is your point?”

“My _point_ is that if you’d so readily trade your death time and time again to prevent that of even one other person, let alone a difficult Padawan who caused the Order nothing but grief for years, then what is it that makes the deaths of trillions—” you nearly say _preferable to bedding me_ before you realize how incredibly harsh that would sound, but something about the way he seems to tense his shoulders and curl inwards implies he was following the general cadence of your agitated signature more than the specific content of your words.

He says absolutely nothing, but he doesn’t move to drop his feet to the floor, either. If only you could punch a proverbial hole through his practically indestructible mental barriers, you'd see the real reason he's so flustered, why he's purposely attempting to deceive you. Unfortunately for you though, they feel like they're made of triple-reinforced beskar, a countermeasure gradually increasing in strength the more you try to probe.

But then—all at once, something clicks. Something… fundamental. An understanding. 

Your Master is a gifted negotiator, yes. But more than that.

He wields a blue saber. Not a green one.

He’s a Guardian. A warrior. He _fights_. It’s something that has never truly been part of your nature, no matter how much you struggled with it over the years—but it is a part of _his_ , no matter how exceptionally he’s been able to mask it for even longer.

So, all at once, you stop pushing. Your signature abruptly pulls away from him, gives him room to breathe and simply hovers within your own personal space, unassuming and careful not to disturb him. You see your Master lift his chin and straighten his spine slightly, immediately noticing your absence and the constant pressure you’d been applying, and you honestly can’t tell if he relaxes or tenses up even more because of it.

Finally, when you feel like it’s been long enough, you slowly reach out and gently place your hand on his arm. This time, there’s no underlying motivation attached, no inherent desire for him to fulfill any sort of obligation. Just a warm, companionable gesture to reinforce the simple knowledge that you’re both in this together, for better or worse.

 _Please tell me, Obi-Wan_ , you quietly whisper to him through the Force, allowing your tone and energy to transfer through your open palm and into his troubled spirit as softly and gently as you possibly can—a caress more than anything even close to a sentence or inquiry. Your usage of his first name is entirely unprecedented however, and your Master sucks in a sharp breath in response.

 _I don't…_ But then the subconscious, half-formed thought fades away almost as quickly as it’s offered to you from behind the solid, unyielding fortress of his mind. “W-what are you doing?”

You bite your lip, wondering how honest you should be with him right now. Though, you suppose, if you truly want him to confide in you, you should at least meet him halfway.

“You’re the locked door,” you finally settle on. “This is me knocking.”

Obi-Wan turns around and blinks at you, looking for all the stars in this galaxy like that was quite possibly the last thing he expected you to say. You can see the frantic thoughts pass through his eyes almost as if the clear blue was completely transparent, likely remembering all the times you’ve leaned on him for guidance, listened intently and learned from his wisdom and experience. And now you’re a fully grown woman patiently offering him your ear, wondering if you’ve earned enough of his trust for him to do the same.

“I’m afraid I’ll form an attachment to you.” The words tumble from his mouth even though his body all but whips away from you in the process. “It’s unreasonable for the Council to expect this from me. From us. I’m afraid our relationship will forever be tarnished from this, that neither of us will ever be able to go back to the way things were before. I’m afraid that regardless of whatever decision I make, I won’t be able to carry the guilt on my conscience and continue to call myself a Jedi and Guardian of the Republic. But mostly, I just—I-I—”

Your heart is pounding as Obi-Wan buries his face into his hands and his muffled voice groans raggedly, “—I’m afraid I’ll _like it._ I’m afraid I’ll want it _again_ , and _again_. I’m afraid it’ll follow me back to Coruscant, that I’ll save the galaxy but spend the rest of my days aching for something I’ll never be able to keep, and that’s _petrifying._ Desire, passion, selfishness, possession; all of them lead to Darkness, and I can—I can feel it right now. Your soul is so gentle, so peaceful, and yet you… you inspire such _Darkness_ in me, dove.”

Maker, you’re trying so hard. _So_ hard to keep your legs from clenching together at the utter desperation in his tone, how his breathing has picked up now that the words have ripped themselves out of his throat, like the whole thing was physical agony even just to say. You have to take a second. You’ve been so patient this entire time, but stars—this one makes you need a moment. You’re so glad his eyes are clamped shut behind his fingers right now because yours lose focus trying to mask the absolutely _debilitating_ wave of arousal that sinks down hot through your stomach.

Even when you regain the ability to speak, the ability to form a safe and proper response to the bombshell he just dropped on you completely evades you.

You purposefully _don't_ say that you're already helplessly attached to him, that the colors of the galaxy somehow lost their brilliance the day you graduated to Knight, the day you left his side. You don't say that you want this so badly you can feel it in your neck, that it would probably break you in half if he said no to this now. Though it's the honest-to-Maker truth, you know discovering this information will only cause your Master to further distance himself from you, and somehow that thought alone is a million times worse than being denied the opportunity to be this close to him. Even… even if what you end up sharing is more emotional than physical.

So you take a deep breath to center yourself, and choose your words very carefully.

“A compromise, then.”

Obi-Wan suddenly raises his head, turning around to look at you and blinking twice. “A what?”

“You told me to negotiate. What do we do as negotiators, hm?” You raise an eyebrow, giving him a gentle smile and trying not to curl your fingers into the fur underneath you with how hard it is to conceal your burning arousal. Do it for him. Do it for your Master, you’re in l—you… _care_ about him, and you care about the things he cares about, even if doing so feels like it’ll rip you apart. “We compromise. Yes? So, let’s find one.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t see h—”

“If you were to…” You cut him off and look down, trying to find the most delicate way to phrase this. “If you were to… find other means to bring yourself to completion, would you be able to convince anyone listening that I was the one doing it?”

Obi-Wan doesn’t even blink this time. He just stares at you, holding himself like a statue in front of you. Finally, he seems to find himself. “I… I don’t—I don’t know if I can.”

“You’re stronger in the Force than anyone on this planet, Master,” you encourage softly, placing a hand back on his arm and squeezing this time. “I’ve felt it.”

“N-No,” he practically hiccups. “No, I mean I-I… I don’t know if… if I _can.”_

Your eyebrows narrow, a mixture of confusion and concern coloring your expression. “If you can…?”

He looks back at you almost desperately, his eyes practically begging you to figure it out so he doesn’t have to say it. Finally, Obi-Wan sighs, seeming to collapse in on himself with its intensity. “I—I’ve never… purposefully reached completion before,” he admits. “I’m—I’m not sure how to.”

Your eyes widen, wanting to kick yourself for making assumptions. Of course. Of course he’d follow his oath to its strictest interpretation, why would you ever think otherwise? “Oh, y-yes, of course not,” you stutter, sounding incredibly stupid and perfectly mirroring the embarrassed flush also painting your Master’s cheeks, “I didn’t mean to imply—”

“It’s alright,” he holds up a hand. “We simply… view such things differently. So long as you do not pass judgment, then neither shall I.”

You nod and look down at your hands, wondering how else you can attempt to tackle this predicament. “What if I…” You blink slowly, almost wanting to keep your eyes closed in case he’s offended by the idea but figuring you should have them open to read his responses. “What if I… don’t touch you?”

Now he just looks confused. “I’m sorry?”

You blush and clear your throat, obviously phrasing this wrong. “If you can modify the context of your projection, then I can… get you there. Without touching you.”

“How could you accomplish such a thing without tou—” Obi-Wan immediately cuts himself off when you lift your hand and close your eyes.

His thigh. The right one—you focus on it. There. Right above the bend of his knee folding over the edge of the mattress, you concentrate all the energy from your fingertips and reach out, connecting the two together. And then you take a deep breath and begin to draw your attention slowly upwards.

Your Master’s breath catches in his throat as you use the Force to delicately trail further up his leg, not laying a single hand on him as his muscles start to visibly tighten and quiver.

“Young one, I—” His breathing stutters when you keep your hand raised but let your head tilt and drop down towards your shoulder with your energy, slinking down the inside of his thigh like water and getting dangerously close to his— “Stars, hang on—”

You blink your eyes open at him and continue concentrating right there, letting your focus melt warm and thick along the muscle and _squeeze_ it—

 _“Maker—”_ Obi-Wan gasps and drops his head back, his legs nearly spasming apart. “Maker, hang on, I…”

“Do you…” You breathe tightly, flicking your eyes down to the way he’s fisting the fur under his hands and subconsciously flexing his hips up just the slightest bit. Even though the Force, his body feels _good_. Strong, sturdy, and braced tight under your attention. “Do you want me to keep doing this? I can… go higher.”

“You can…? The—the Force isn’t—” Obi-Wan groans, his eyes clamping shut, “—isn’t meant to be used in such… in such… If I’m to break my oath, young one, it needn’t be so… so _blasphemous—”_

Trying to conceal the hot sparks of arousal deep in your stomach, you simply allow your metaphysical hand to continue resting right at the juncture of his hip and thigh, waiting for a real answer. You bite your lip and wait for him to tell you to either cut it out or to keep going. He doesn’t even have to say it out loud if he doesn’t want to—he can just slide it under the impassable door still separating him from you, the door you’re eventually going to get him to unlock himself.

His back is to you, so you can only see a bit of his face from this angle, but you can hear him loud and clear when he opens his mouth and whispers to you, barely louder than a breath. “Go higher.”

Adrenaline rockets through your veins and slowly, your fingers curl in thin air while your gentle energy wraps itself around his cock.

Both of Obi-Wan’s hands instantly fly up to his face and he releases a tight, longing whimper into his palms, and you feel almost as desperate as he sounds. You can sense the ghost of his thickness in your hand, and the way he’s already throbbing for it is like pure spice to you.

You can’t stop your crossed legs from shuffling and rotating your body to face his hunched spine more directly, just taking a second and allowing him to adjust to the sensation of you just holding him between his legs like this. Your fingers rest gently along his pulsing skin while he hides from you, and if only to get a little bit more of a reaction for your own sake, your thumb just barely angles to delicately brush up under his frenulum. 

Obi-Wan _shudders_ and makes a choking noise behind his palms, and oh good Maker, you _really_ want to see his face. You know it’ll probably never happen unless you take your own initiative, but you also don’t want to overstep and snap him out of this blissful reverie. Still, something compels you to be so gentle about it that he hopefully won’t even notice. 

You start to slowly work the length of him and squeeze his cock a bit more firmly, but a tendril of your energy slowly slithers upwards, so quiet and full of caution that it hardly even counts. Very carefully, you start to flatten the lifeforce from your other palm over his stomach and trail it up, gradually urging him to stretch his slouched figure upright and then eventually start to tip backwards, never once letting your focus on his throbbing erection falter.

Your courageous efforts bestow prosperous rewards. Obi-Wan’s hands drag down the length of his face and he makes it almost too easy to keep pressing him back—back back _back_ until his muscles give up what little fight they were putting up against it and his shoulders are dropping down to the mattress, his head falling into your lap.

“There we go,” you whisper under your breath, just loud enough to softly encourage him if he’s listening but avoiding a break in his focus if he’s not. “That’s not so bad.”

“It isn’t,” Obi-Wan gasps up at you, his eyes tightly closed but his jaw slack and his handsome features screwed up in rapture. “Oh, no, it’s… it’s really… rea— _good.”_

You bite your lip and your cunt flexes hard between your legs without your permission, feeling so empty. If you’re being honest, only touching him through the Force causes your hand to become increasingly bold, also feeling too empty. Obi-Wan’s head rolls to the side and he pants hot air against the thin black fabric covering your thighs as you tighten your hold around him just slightly and start to move up and down his cock in earnest.

 _“Fuck,”_ he whispers, the dirty word and rasp in his voice contrasting brilliantly with the proper Coruscanti accent and the crisp enunciation behind it. “Fuck, this feels so good, I—”

His fingers grab at the fur covering the mattress top and pull at it, his adam’s apple bobbing sharp along the arching column of his throat as he groans and twists his head around in your lap. He confesses it like it’s so wrong, but it can’t be wrong when he fits so perfectly in your hand? How can this be wrong when it’s the only pleasure you can possibly give him that’s anywhere near close enough to match the way you feel when he’s around? Even then, it’s but a fraction.

Your gaze flickers briefly from his face to check your progress with his body, and—stars, there’s a startling wet spot staining the front of his pale trousers, his cock tenting up shameless and needy for you to ache and throb just as desperately for in return. Fuck, he deserves this, he deserves _more—_

“I can—I can make it better—” you can’t help but gasp, your eyebrows slanting upwards with need. “Oh fuck, I can make it so much better than this for you, Obi-Wan—”

“You…?” He blinks his stormy eyes open and sounds like he’s about to explode. “This can be—” he chokes out, “—better?”

You can’t stop yourself. Your pussy is clamped up so tight between your legs and Maker, you want to _reward_ him for being so good to you, give him true adoration instead of phantom touches. You don’t think before you’re moving out from under him and slinking down onto the floor, slipping in between his spread thighs. You use the Force with a bend of your finger to tug his pants down just enough, just enough to let the swollen tip of his cock peak through the waistband, and then your head is dropping into his lap as you let it slide into your hot mouth.

Obi-Wan lifts his head and _snarls_ at you—and something across the room shatters as you widen your throat for him and slowly sink down his length, curling your finger to stretch his hemline further as you go. His fingers aren’t gentle when they fist into your hair and neither is the way he immediately twists it sideways, feeling like he’s trying to pull you off and shove you down on him at the same time.

You’re stuck between going as slow as you physically can to drag this out and giving him the best oral you’ve ever given to make him dream about this for the rest of his life. You want him to want this as badly as you have for so many years. You want him to fall into this Darkness with you, to _crave_ you and what you can give to him so much that he’ll never want to leave you again.

So you make it wet. You make it soft and slow and _wet_ , switching between sucking gently at the tip and swirling your tongue around it, and then inching his length down your throat and swallowing around the thick girth of it once you can’t fit anymore in your mouth. Obi-Wan is just an absolute mess about it—he can’t sit still, he’s tugging uselessly on your hair, whimpering out his bliss into the quiet room while you close your eyes and ignore his squirming, just taking your sweet time enjoying him and the way he feels.

He tastes exquisite. Maybe it’s just because all your broken, stupid brain can think right now is slightly varying forms of _my Master’s cock is in my mouth and it’s fucking leaking_ while you slowly nurse from it with your tongue, but stars—he tastes _exquisite._

He’s swollen. Throbbing. Aching for you. Releasing precum from the tip like his body is producing way too much of it after decades of neglect and just needs to get it all out at once. Shifting and writhing underneath you but managing to never move his hips or cock a single inch away from the soft attention you’re giving him. You can feel his smooth skin pulse against your tongue as you continue your lazy pleasuring, finally giving him what you’ve both been denied for so long and steadily swallowing down the spoils of your endeavors.

“—Wait, wait, Maker— _stop,_ ” you faintly hear gasped from above you not long after you even begin, and it takes the sum of all your efforts to unlodge his throbbing cock from your throat and pull away from him.

“I’m sorry,” you exhale automatically, trying not to slur your words as a bit of drool slides down your chin. “I’m s’sorry, Obi, I should’ve asked before I—”

“Something’s… n-not right,” Obi-Wan interrupts you and lifts himself up to his elbows, his abdominal muscles heaving and a wild, frenzied look in his startlingly bright eyes. “My stomach was—I-I felt—”

Heat blooms through you along with a realization, and your eyelids begin to droop slightly at just how _sexy_ it is—the fact that this man, this fully grown, red-blooded, _warrior_ of a man is currently teetering on the precipice of his very first ever orgasm, and you’re the only one with the power to give it to him.

You shuffle backwards slightly, grabbing hold of his thighs and squeezing to get his attention. “Hey. It’s okay, relax.”

Obi-Wan nods his head vigorously down at you, the exact opposite of relaxed.

“Listen to me,” you urge quietly, trying to ignore the sight of his thick, swollen cock twitching restlessly against his abdomen, precum still steadily dribbling at the tip. Is your mouth watering? “This is it. You’ll need to start projecting when you’re ready. It’ll be tricky, but not impossible. You’ll just have to imagine you’re inside me when it happens.”

Obi-Wan shakes his head vigorously from side to side, vehemently opposed.

“No, I don’t—” He croaks, “—I don’t know what it’s like, I won’t be able to—”

“Doesn’t my mouth feel similar at least?” You ask, looking down at his cock once more.

“I-I—” Obi-Wan sputters, “I don’t _know,_ young one—you tell me!”

Okay, well. He… makes a valid point.

You settle back on your knees even further, gazing at your Master thoughtfully. His chest continues to rise and fall with heavy breaths, a thin sheen of sweat coating his temples and a mild flush high in his cheeks, but his eyes have regained a bit of their focus. “You can just try to imagine the, uh,” you try, your cunt nearly convulsing with burning need at the mere sight of him, “the same positioning and sensation from… earlier?”

“Alright, I can…” Obi-Wan nods, though his hands are shaking. “I’ll do the best I…”

You can’t help but lean forward to press a soft, encouraging kiss to his thigh, and he jerks under your touch. You try it again, receiving the same result, and it makes you pause for just a minute longer.

“I’m nervous,” he blurts unceremoniously after a moment of stillness, as if you hadn’t noticed. “Oh stars, I’m nervous, I—”

 _“Obi-Wan,”_ you let your voice lull, your hands squeezing gently around the bend of his knees once more. “Calm down. Clear your mind.”

He hiccups and you wait. You wait with your mouth a few inches away from his cock, waiting for his breathing to slow and for him to follow your lead.

 _Can you hear me?_ You murmur through the Force, and he quickly whimpers and nods. _Focus your thoughts._

You gently kiss at his tensing thighs once again, and he doesn’t flinch away from you this time. His breathing slows into a calmer, steadier rhythm, letting you trail your lips gently along the curve of his leg.

 _Will you let me try something?_ You ask after a moment, opening your mouth just the slightest bit to brush your tongue out and taste his skin.

“Y-Yes,” Obi-Wan says quietly, his breath stuttering through the word.

And—perhaps you shouldn’t have, but you give him something; a suggestion, more than anything else. You give him a… visual. A reference to guide his mind through the Force.

You, still in your black robe, slowly standing up from between his legs. Widening your stance to straddle his lap, pull you robes up just enough, and then adjust your hips just slightly over the head of his cock.

Obi-Wan inhales sharply at the vision, his eyes clamping tightly shut against it in vain. He can close his eyes, turn away, hide his face all he wants—he can’t escape the way your body looks as it slowly begins to sink down on his.

At the exact same time, you lower your mouth around his cock once more, and you try to make it as close to the sensation as possible. You don’t even move your tongue, you simply lift your soft palate and close your lips around his girth, beginning to carefully bob up and down along his length in time to the image you’re conjuring of you riding him.

Only, you already feel his balls tightening up and his body starting to go rigid with tension once again, and you can sense him still wanting to resist his approaching orgasm. _It’s okay, Master,_ you encourage quietly through the vision, _it’s okay, just let it come easy._

“I—I’m not—” he shakes his head back and forth against the bed frantically, his breathing getting shallower and almost immediately picking back up to where it was before you stopped. “I d-don’t want—”

 _Stop fighting,_ you tell him, continuing to mimic the sensation of him thrusting into your aching, neglected cunt with slow and steady movements of your throat. _Don’t run from it, let it take you._

He grits your name tightly in response and subconsciously begins to rock his hips up to match your unhurried pace, his ragged breathing gasping out into the quiet room and gradually increasing in volume and desperation the longer he stubbornly tries to hold out against it.

You know not strong enough to use the Force to coax it out of him. You can’t alter your technique and break the illusion, either. So you have to resort to desperate measures.

There’s enough remaining wherewithal to your mind that prevents you from permanently damaging his clothing when you tear his robes open with the Force and allow the metaphysical image of yourself to rip them apart with your hands. Obi-Wan gasps when both versions of you reach up his bare torso at the same time and dig your nails into his chest.

 _Master_ —you demand, taking his cock down your throat as far as you can go and then clawing hard down his stomach— ** _cum._**

And thank everything good and right in the universe that he remembers at the very last second to start projecting, because being this close to someone as strong in the Force as Obi-Wan when he finally succumbs to his first taste of the Dark Side is just a fucking atomic missile straight to your nervous system.

It’s all you can do to just remember to keep swallowing.

The projection he casts out through the shockwave is utterly flawless—brilliantly composed, looking and feeling so authentic and overwhelming even from this distance that there should be no issue at all convincing any s’Ziscari in the wide vicinity who are tuning in right now.

Except—then you hear it. Through the roaring pleasure of his thoughts, a flicker of his subconscious he’s unable to mask through the mind blowing bliss.

 _Is she…? Maker above, she’s_ drinking _it—_

A ragged groan tears through the silence of the room, his cock pulsing spectacularly on your tongue. He just keeps _cumming_ , and _cumming_ , and so you just have to keep swallowing, and swallowing. You suppose you should’ve expected this from a fully grown man who lived a life of celibacy, but what would typically be a rather short moment with anyone else subsequently goes on long enough to where Obi-Wan is actually able to lazily raise his head up from the mattress and simply watch you continue to swallow his load, dazed and reverent in his stare, glassy blue eyes trained on the hypnotic movements your jaw and throat make around him. The remaining traces of whatever visual he attempted to maintain immediately flicker out of existence, replaced instead by the sight of your mouth around his cock, diligently taking down each rope of cum he gives you.

When he finally stops throbbing, you reluctantly let his cock fall from your mouth and slowly stand up as the botched projection fizzles out completely. His gaze eventually follows the movement like he’s on a five second delay.

“So, uh…” Your voice is hoarse. “We… need to have sex.”

“Alright,” he agrees dreamily, his eyes lazily dragging down your body. “Alright, we can have… I… Wait, what?”

“You, uh. I know it wasn’t intentional, but you might’ve, uh…” You shuffle awkwardly from side to side, wondering why you’ve chosen now of all moments to become shy with him. You’re literally still savoring the taste of his release in your mouth. “You might’ve accidentally projected a very specific thought towards the end there and let everyone know that we weren’t actually doing what we’re technically supposed to be doing.”

“What did… what did I think?” The question would likely be nonsense in literally any other situation, but you understand. And truthfully, for the life of you, you can’t find it within yourself to feel even a little bit mad about it, not when it means you can continue doing this together. You can’t even conjure up a single shred of disappointment in his failure, it’d just be a lie.

“Doesn’t matter,” you assure him, your heart continuing to pound. You know you should make your next move now while he’s still so loopy, the post-orgasm bliss causing his signature to vibrate with pulsing endorphins as he blinks up at you slowly from the bed. “Though we won’t be able to do it for a little bit, just uh. Just for general… anatomical reasons. But that should’ve at least counted for… initiating the Ritual, so I don’t think we have to worry about time anymore.”

Obi-Wan just stares at you, his Force signature feeling more serene and spaced out than you’ve ever sensed before. Oh Maker, how you wish you felt the same. You swallow thickly, still tasting his hard orgasm on your tongue, and then try not to clamp your thighs together with how embarrassingly turned on you are. Anyone with any experience whatsoever would know exactly what you’re going through with just a mere glance—you’re biting your lip with your entire body is subtly crumpled in towards your swollen, neglected pussy—and your Master has been watching you struggle through it this entire time.

“Are you alright?” He asks dumbly, finally managing to at least push himself upright, still completely unaware or unconcerned at his softening cock on full display for you and your starving libido. “You’re… shaking.”

“I—won’t die,” is the only serious assurance you can make to both him and yourself right now that’ll ease your suffering the smallest bit. The last thing you want right now is to come on too strong and snap him back to his senses, bringing everything back to square one. “Just, uh… r-really worked—worked up. Trying to just. C-Cool it?”

Your fingers flex at your sides because no matter what you try, you just can’t stop thinking about his. They’re right there. They’re so close, so strong and thick and—

“Aren’t you…” He trails off, letting his head tilt and then drop to his shoulder with a combination of confusion and exhaustion. “Aren’t you going to…?”

“To what?” You prompt shortly, your hands suddenly clenching into fists to deal with another violent wave of arousal at how unbelievably drunk he still looks. Maker, you did that. That’s _all_ you.

“s’Zerthia said all—” Obi-Wan murmurs, blinking long lashes lazily up at you, “—all Jedi must… participate.”

Fuck. Just hearing him provide you an excuse to give into the boiling arousal causes you to suddenly break out into a sweat. You don’t know if he wants you to get yourself off or if he’s indirectly implying he wants to help, but you’re so far beyond desperate that you jump at the chance as soon as he so much as hints at the opportunity.

Very slowly, you move forward and lift one trembling knee to brace next to his thigh on the mattress, and then carefully swing your other leg over his lap, lowering yourself into a straddle in the same exact position he attempted to project earlier. You’re so unbelievably cautious about his cock, making sure you don’t accidentally touch it and jolt him awake. Instead of your newfound proximity scaring him away like you feared though, he stays so… _docile_. Still so relaxed from his very first orgasm that he even rests his large palms over the thin fabric covering your thighs, letting the loose silk drape and fold over his hands as he drags them up and down.

His eyes follow your trembling fingers as you work at the knot tying the material around your body, your cunt throbbing between your legs at how he’s just… staring. His eyelids are dipped slightly, breathing so calm and slouched under you, pliant and waiting.

The thin fabric slowly parts only enough to reveal the valley between your bare chest to him, and you watch his eyes fall down the thin strip of skin and catch on the dark line of your panties riding low on your hips. Maker, you can’t help but remember his terror at even glimpsing the two acolytes taking off their robes earlier—the way his eyes bounced around and how his cheeks lost whatever color they had left to them as soon as he finally made himself look. Now, though. Now he can’t seem to drag his eyes away from the soft flesh of your tummy, the way your nipples are still covered by the thin fabric of your slightly parted robe but are impossible to miss while your breasts subtly move with your breathing.

You gently call one of his wrists to your hand with the Force and Obi-Wan is either mentally or physically too weak to resist your will. He allows you to catch his hand and slowly lead it downwards with both of your smaller ones to the part of your body that’s longed for his attention for years, though now it’s absolutely weeping for it.

You don’t want to scare him. You don’t want to scare him. Oh Maker, you need him to be brave for you right now, or at least just continue to be stupefied. You can work with stupefied, but you _cannot_ work with panic, especially when you feel your own wanting to rise up the more you drag this out.

When the tips of his fingers brush against the waistband of your panties, Obi-Wan’s hand pushes under it without your guidance.

You’re throbbing. It’s been years in the making. Unable to stop the way your thighs contract and you lift your hips against his palm as it steadily curves down the slope of your soft curls, the sight of the finish line so within reach makes you reckless and too quick. You can’t help it. When he gets hesitant and eventually slows down to a halt right above your slit, you don’t even think before you’re suddenly giving his wrist an abrupt shove with the Force, pulling his hand down before he’s ready and forcing his middle finger deep through the soaking cleft of your pussy.

Your shameless moan of his name comes out sounding so grateful—you pour everything you have into it and sag into Obi-Wan’s chest at the feeling, but he startles and all but rips his hand out of your underwear before you can stop him. He was a hair’s breadth from touching your clit and the denial of it—the sudden turnaround from your goal is just so massively overwhelming that tears suddenly spring to your eyes.

You can just barely make out the sight of him staring down at his trembling hand between the two of you, your slick shining wet and hot along the length of his finger. 

“Stars,” he rasps, blinking his wide, sapphire gaze up to yours—and then he quite suddenly looks alarmed. “Did I—Did I hurt you?” Obi-Wan gasps, his energy beginning to outright seize with distress while you blink rapidly and try not to crumble on his lap.

“No—I’m sorry, it’s just—I’m just… oh, _fuck_ , I n-need it,” you stammer. “Oh fuck, I need it Master, I’m so sorry—I’m trying to be calm but—”

“What is it, little dove?” He urges, reaching his hand up to your face and flicking his eyes back and forth between yours, sounding almost as panicked as you do from your desperation. “What do you need?”

“Oh stars, Obi-Wan, I need you to just—” You can’t fit anything into words, a tear finally making its way down your cheek when you clamp your eyes shut in frustration. You just need him to _understand_ , to give you what you’ve been craving for so long—but when you blink your eyes back open, his troubled expression has suddenly resolved itself.

Your Master’s hands immediately grab tight to your hips and twist you around, easily tossing you back up onto the mattress. The jostle of bouncing back into the soft fur startles you, but not nearly as much as when he climbs over your body and braces an elbow next to your head, gently placing the tips of his fingers to your temple.

He pushes carefully but firmly against your natural mental barriers, flexing the energy shields inwards gently enough to not hurt you but with enough force to let you know he’s entirely capable of breaking through should you refuse to let him in.

So you do. You let him in without a single thought, never mind a second one. Obi-Wan gasps as your shields all but collapse for him that easily, and then he’s finally breaching the surface of your thoughts.

“Oh—Maker _above_ , little one,” he grits almost immediately, his forehead dropping to your shoulder and his other hand wrapping tight around your arm as he struggles to acclimate to the blinding distress you’re experiencing. “Collect—” he groans as your cunt clamps down at the rasp of his broken voice, “— _collect_ yourself. I can’t—can’t _think—”_

Oh, no, it’s too much. It’s way too much, even just having him inside your head without being able to read him in return—it’s too much for you. You start hyperventilating and instead of wanting him out, you just want to drown out the sensation of everything else. The endlessly pulsing, aching throb between your legs that you’ve been dealing with for so long, the way you can feel his cock dragging against your tummy from this angle and how much you already want it in your mouth again, the way your nipples are so hard right now that even this soft fabric feels so rough and sharp against—

Your robe suddenly rips itself off your chest, and you whimper up at the ceiling as you dig your fingers into thick fur and writhe under him, almost completely naked and just desperate for him to do something, to at least just use his hands or his mouth to make you feel bet—

Obi-Wan’s head drops and his blazing mouth opens hot around your nipple, his tongue rolling soft and slick up under the hard bud.

You choke out the first part of his name and you barely even have a flicker of a thought—a brief flash of a rabid, baser desire you’re not even able to consciously recognize before you feel his jaw opening and his teeth closing gently around it, biting down just hard enough to make you spasm bright and urgent between your legs. “Oh, _fuck—”_

As soon as you feel the pleasure and twisting ache spark deep in your core, Obi-Wan flutters his eyes shut and wedges his hand back into your panties, humming low in his throat when your legs jerk apart for him.

This time, your clit is the very first thing he touches.

He zeroes in on it. The tip of his finger starts to rub it exactly how you’d do it to yourself, _exactly_ the right angle and speed and pressure that your body suddenly feels massively overheated and dizzy from it. It blindsides you. It makes sense he’d be able to do this, after all, but for some reason, the whole thing just absolutely blindsides you.

“ _Maker_ ,” you whimper at the ceiling, soft and pitched high in your throat, eyes rolling back when Obi-Wan gently bites down on your nipple again and continues to work to relieve you even as every muscle in your body feels like it’s tightening up.

“ _Stars—”_ he whispers when he pulls away, “This—this feels _incredible_ , Padawan _.”_

You moan and roll your hips against his hand, on cloud nine at just how he’s slowly allowing himself to become filthier with you, to lower himself in all his righteous beliefs and descend into delicious sin with you, and—

—wait, did he just…?

Your cunt clamps down hard with realization as he continues massaging your clit better than you’ve ever even done it yourself. Maker, it shouldn’t turn you on so much but it _does_ , hearing that word in this context. Padawan. Padawan, holding her legs open while her Master explores her pussy. Padawan, moaning desperately as her orgasm buzzes deep down inside with a rising, threatening resonance. Padawan, Padawan, _Padawan—_

“Oh, you _liked_ that,” Obi-Wan remarks tightly, taking a second to tug on your clit. You nearly start to cry again, your insides pulling up and going rigid at the sensation. “I heard it, little one. You like it when I call you that?”

“Oh I like it when you do f-fucking anything,” you choke out helplessly, your words starting to slur together. “Oh fuck, you’re so amazing, you’re so good at everything, you’re the best Jedi in the whole entire galaxy Master, you’re so much better th—”

“ _My_ , you’re agreeable like this, aren’t you?” Obi-Wan grits, his touches growing stronger and quicker and rocketing you straight to the edge of madness. “Shall I take that to heart, my darling little Padawan? Or did you say such flattering things to the oth—”

“Wait!” You suddenly exclaim, desperately trying to push his hands away. “Oh, nononono _no_ —wait, wait, wait, I—I-I’m about to cum—I need to—”

His hand yanks itself out of your underwear once more and you take giant, gasping breaths and try to compose yourself at least somewhat, but then your Master is quickly scrambling down your body and using the Force to rip your panties down your hips—

“Obi-Wan, wait—” you choke out, “that isn’t—you don’t… h-have to…”

He looks up at you, dark brows furrowed in confusion.

“I’ll be able to—y-you don’t—” You have to take a few gasping breaths and remember how to speak Basic. “I used my mouth on you before because I… I wanted to. If—If you don’t want to do that, you don’t have to. It’s not… oh fucking stars above, it’s not n-necessary.”

“Are you telling me this because _you_ don’t want me to?” He immediately asks, though you both already clearly know the answer to that considering how exposed your wild thoughts are to him right now.

“Ah, no I, uh… I just.” You try to clear the thickness from your throat and you feel your body tremble while you focus as much effort as possible into trying to explain. “I just want to be sure I’m not taking advantage of you, that’s all, I—I want you to know the truth about these things. It’s not… necessary, b-but.”

“But.” He repeats the word meaningfully as he glances back down at your weeping cunt, nodding slowly to himself.

And then your Master leans in, flutters his eyes shut, and slides his warm tongue deep into the seam of your pussy with absolutely no hesitation whatsoever.

“Obi— _Wan—!?”_ You gasp, somewhere between a squeak and a squeal, your entire upper body launching upwards around his head as your clit is immediately enveloped into a slick, dexterous furnace.

 _Hold still_ , you hear his voice warn through the Force, sounding so much closer than you’ve ever heard him before. Whether that can be attributed to the fact that the command came directly from wherever he is inside your head or whether it’s simply because his tongue is now tracing gentle circles around your clit as you whimper pitifully into the quiet of the dimly lit room, you’re not sure. All you know is that his mouth feels like velvet between your legs and his beard is scraping across your thighs and your fingers have buried themselves in his hair without your conscious permission.

 _Hold_ ** _still_** _, young one,_ he urges once more, but you just close your eyes and moan shamelessly at it this time, opening your legs wider for him. His voice, it’s… it’s maddening like this, coming directly from your own thoughts. Deep, precise, somehow sounding so _true_ , so much clearer and full-bodied without your pesky ears in the way. Your hips are subconsciously rolling slowly against the lower half of his face when Obi-Wan apparently decides he’s had enough.

An invisible energy wraps around each of your individual limbs and snaps them against the mattress without any warning. You whimper high in your throat, arms and legs held so firmly against the bed with the Force that your internal struggles aren’t able to be translated outwardly; he doesn’t allow your body a single centimeter to move under him, no matter how hard you fight it. Which means you have to lay there and just _take_ the way Obi-Wan’s hot mouth continues to lick and kiss at your clit slowly, taking all the time in the universe to properly explore you between the legs he’s forced apart.

“Obi—” you croak breathlessly at the ceiling, feeling a familiar heat start to burn hot and tight through your core, “Obi, I—I have to p-project—before I—ah!—before you—before you ma-make me cu—ugh, f-fuck—I have t-to—”

 _Then project,_ he encourages simply, gently fluttering his tongue over your clit. You gasp and he hums, murmuring through the Force once more to you. _We’re not hiding anymore. They’ll all know I’m using my mouth on you like this. It’s alright. Let them know._

You realize you’re going to cum the second you hear your Master’s voice say the words _using my mouth on you like this_ while he slowly sucks on your clit, and you barely have enough wherewithal to gulp in a giant breath and begin projecting your signature as far across the palace and surrounding city as physically possible before your body shatters hot into searing euphoria under him.

Obi-Wan groans deep in his throat and holds you perfectly still under him as you cum with a ragged, hoarse wail of his name, giant waves of white hot bliss beginning to radiate through the Force from you with spectacular power. The contractions are so much more pronounced when it’s one of the only sets of muscles in your body he’s granted permission to move. It’s like everything is concentrated and multiplied there because of it. You can feel each individual spasm your floor muscles make as they convulse against his tongue, how each blazing shot of ecstasy that shatters through your body wrings more and more wetness from your cunt into your Master’s mouth.

Never. Ever ever ever. Has anyone done something so mind blowingly sexy to you. Nobody. Ever. _He’s a virgin_ , you frantically remember as Obi-Wan purrs softly into the folds of your pussy while it cums all over him.

 _Your thoughts, young one_ , you can just barely make out his voice remind you gently, just as gently as he sucks on your clit through the aftershocks, somehow sounding even more aroused than he did before.

After allowing your projection to flicker out of existence with a putter, you’re completely dazed. Incapable of moving regardless of the way he keeps you pinned with the Force long after he pulls away, slowly moves back up your body and waits while you work to regain your bearings. You don’t even want to open your eyes right now, knowing he’s looking down at your peaceful expression while you work to catch your breath. You’re too stupid with pleasure you almost don’t even process the soft touch of something against your lips.

**_You’re_ ** _lovely._

The thought is so quiet you don’t even recognize it isn’t your own. Not until he keeps pressing his lips to yours so sweetly, not knowing to do anything else when your mind is too fractured with ecstasy to unconsciously act as his compass like before. Everything is innocent and gentle and not reminiscent of the fact that the robes you’re both wearing are wide open and your mouths tasted of each other even before he kissed you.

Instead of melting into the soft touches, though, they just start to burn you alive, the thick fog of your orgasm clearing more and more with each gentle press of his lips and your need for him steadily growing. He’s kissing you. Master Kenobi is kissing you for a few precious, heart stopping seconds at a time before pulling away, pausing to look at your face each time to make sure your eyes are still closed, before leaning down and carefully pressing his lips to yours again.

The only part you can’t stand is that he won’t even let you move your jaw to kiss him back.

 _Kiss me, Obi-Wan_ , you urge desperately through the Force, not wanting to interrupt to speak.

“I _am,_ little one,” he replies between kisses, and the sincerity in his tone tells you he’s not purposefully teasing you. No, this is him kissing you, genuinely, the only way he knows how to.

 _Let me_ — you start to struggle in earnest against his hold on you, — _please, let me—_

The warm breath from his nose puffs softly against your cheek with a quiet little sound from far back in his throat, and then you suddenly gain the ability to move from the neck up.

You immediately part his lips with yours and Obi-Wan pulls back just the slightest bit in response, but your neck lifts up to compensate as you lick deep into his warm mouth. He gasps at the foreign sensation and loses his concentration for a split second, enough for you to break free of it completely. Your hands quickly fly up to cradle his face as soon as they can move and your fingers hook around the thick beard blanketing his sharp jawline, urging him back down into you.

Your legs come up to wrap around his lower back and he sags against your strong will with a needy groan, dropping down closer and obediently keeping his mouth open for you to taste. As soon as he presses his body into yours, his cock strains and drags against your lower stomach, already throbbing hot and leaking precum along the soft hills of your skin.

Maker, you want it but somehow you… you _don’t._ You just want to savor tonight as long as you physically can, keep holding him and kissing him like this for another few hours at least before you try to take his cock, but he’s unintentionally grinding it against you while his tongue shyly dances with yours, needy and already raring to go in his own timid way.

 _Do you want it, Master?_ You finally murmur to him, running your fingers through his hair and gently biting his bottom lip, scooting your hips up to let him rub himself against something better than your tummy. _You feel… ready._

The only response you get from him is a shuddering, helpless moan into your mouth and you hold him tighter to you, grinding your still sensitive cunt up against his cock while he pulls hard at the soft fur next to your head. Your feel your soaking pussy lips part around the solid curve of his length and gradually coat the underside of him in slick with every gentle circle and roll your hips make, and Obi-Wan finally pulls away from your mouth to drop his forehead to your neck.

“Yes, I—” he moans into you skin, “Oh _stars_ , I want it.”

With a gentle wave of your hand, you use the Force to drop his hips down to the proper angle and tilt the head of his cock to line him up perfectly.

And now this is the part you don’t want to rush. This is when you take Obi-Wan Kenobi’s virginity. You’ll savor just being able to remember this for the rest of your fucking life. You’ll see him in Council meetings years from now and be reminded that you’re the only person in the galaxy to know the thickness of him as he rests heavy up against your entrance, the way his voice presses deliciously tight in his throat as he gasps out into the quiet room. _You’re_ the only one who will know that sound, that sound is _yours,_ that sound belongs to—

“Padawan,” he grits, hips stuttering into you while you wrap your arms around his shoulders, “your _thoughts—”_

You groan up at the ceiling and your pussy tightens at the reminder that he can still hear you, but your body is just too bold and desperate for it. Your thoughts begin to flare bright, growing more possessive by the second, and you can’t even wait for him this time. Every single muscle in Obi-Wan’s body goes rigid when you tighten your grip around him and roll your hips up into his cock, letting it break you open nice and slow.

It stretches you wide with a deliciously sharp fullness and pleasure rips through you as Obi-Wan instinctively tries to lift off you and away from it, but you’re clinging too tightly to him. Your whole body hovers off the mattress to stay with him. 

“You said—” he gasps, “—it wouldn’t h-hurt— _oh—”_

“It doesn’t,” you groan, continuing to tighten your legs and hoist yourself up, lifting your hips to take his cock deeper inside you. “Oh, Maker, it feels so fucking _good,_ Obi— _feel it_ —”

His elbows shake where they’re locked and braced against the mattress but he drops his head and holds strong like this while you work your muscles to take him as far as you can from this shameful angle. Your body feels like it’s on fire while you desperately cling to him and the length of your robe brushes against the mattress while you just keep trying to get him deeper inside you—

Suddenly something grabs hard at your hips and tries shoves you downwards and off his cock, but you want it too badly. You summon the hidden strength of your energy and then channel it into your legs where they’re hooked around the curve of his lower back.

Obi-Wan chokes at the unexpected resistance and his elbows buckle, dropping you both down to his forearms with a jolt, but you’re too busy mentally clashing with each other for it. The result is… well, it’s maddening.

Every time your pussy is able to swallow him more than halfway, you pull back and let his energy shove you down his length—but then dig back in right before you drop completely and use the Force to bend your legs and fight the uphill battle to his cock once more. Your Master gasps, beads of sweat gathering at his temples while you fight him with every ragged breath in your body to keep fucking him.

Except—he’s the fighter. And you should’ve known.

You’re no match for the sudden blast of energy from him, easily hinging your legs apart from around his back and then ripping you down off his cock with a wet sound, bouncing back down into the mattress once more.

In order to stop the desperate tears of defeat from coming to your eyes, you immediately clamp them shut and twist your face away from Obi-Wan’s, but he makes a low growl and uses the same ferocious royal blue energy to keep your knees pinned open and wide against the bed. 

And then drops his hips and rocks back into you, giving you those last few precious inches of his thickness you weren’t able to get at before. It hits sharp nirvana up inside you with his thighs pressed tight to your hips like this. His name rips itself from your throat while Obi-Wan clenches his jaw and starts to lose himself in the pleasure, holding you down into the bed with the Force while he allows your desperation to guide him to the perfect angle and speed to sate you. 

He’s so gifted, so strong in the Force, he’s able to use your mind as his anchor and give you pleasure beyond anything you’ve ever experienced. And in return, you want to do the same to him. You want to read _his_ thoughts, instantly be able to give him everything he never knew he needed—

“You _do,”_ your Master chokes out, “darling, you already—”

Everything inside you surges up at the admission, aching that much harder to hear him, to hear _everything_ the way he can hear you. The tips of your fingers find his temple, slick with sweat, and you press just hard enough to tell him your intent.

“Let me in,” you whisper, wicked arousal swirling tight in your lower muscles as they start to bear down on his cock.

“I—I can’t—” Obi-Wan gasps breathlessly, “I _can’t—”_

“Open—open the door, Master,” you beg, “please, open th—”

“Fuck,” he cuts you off, his voice rising in pitch while his his hips snap just a little harder against yours and his rhythm falters, “—It’s too _good_ , Padaw—I’m going t-to—stars, are you—are you r-ready?”

Some terrifying, swirling darkness manifests itself deep in your thoughts. It rises up, part of the desperate, hidden subconscious that you’re typically capable of stifling. _No_ , it says, _don’t let this be over_. Not yet. You don’t want to go to sleep alone, wake up and remember you’ll never have this again. You need there to be a next time, and a time after it.

You try your hardest to push the longing downwards when you recognize it, but your Master is too quick, too talented to deceive when he’s this close to you. He easily plucks it from your mind and expands it, enlarges the chaotic string of thoughts until you feel them pulsing at the edges of your consciousness.

And then Obi-Wan sees it all, immediately playing out in your memories as you helplessly watch on. Every desire you buried for him unearthed, every whimper you stifled with the back of your hand when you touched yourself at night and thought of him amplified. The years of repression, the blind hope that simply ignoring it would make it go away. How hard you worked to deaden the burst of affection that radiated through the Force when you finally saw him after two years apart. The circumstances behind the night you lost your virginity—not a long time ago, as he suggested before, but only just last year. So desperate in your loneliness and longing for his presence that you began routinely sneaking around and fucking other Knights—Guardians with blue sabers whose souls were just marginally close enough to Obi-Wan’s, and you thought of him the whole time. Every time.

But, perhaps, worst of all. The… fantasies.

He sees himself dropping to his knees and congratulating you for passing your trials by burying his tongue inside your warmth and telling you how proud of you he is. He sees you opening his trousers and slowly licking his cock while he meditates, trying to get him to break his concentration. He watches the two of you fucking in every conceivable position, how incredibly ready you always are to take him when he needs it. Most importantly, he recognizes your inherent, blazing desire to drag this out as long as physically possible, to permanently brand every moment in your memory to get you through his impending absence.

And then… then Obi-Wan does something unexpected. Something incredibly uncharacteristic.

You watch as he morphs the fantasies right before your eyes. He's still on his knees with his head between your legs, but now he’s telling you how proud he is of you for negotiating the mysterious, confidential deal that ended the Clone Wars. You’re licking his cock as the ship autopilots itself through the week-long journey back to Coruscant from s’Ziscari, letting him slowly cum in your mouth as he sprawls lazily in the captain’s chair. He’s taking you against the wall of your quarters after a mindless and dull Council meeting; you’re riding him quietly in his bed after lights-out at the temple; he’s rubbing your clit while he sits behind you and advises you on matters concerning your own Padawan you’ll be choosing sometime soon, two fingers deep and squeezing a bared nipple when he whispers in your ear how much he absolutely adores you.

Thoughts that aren’t your own begin to fill the empty spaces of your mind, a lovely pale blue tenor to harmonize gorgeously with the soft green alto of your own consciousness. The resulting color of your combined energies fills your soul with Light, a stunning turquoise of a color you’ve never loved more, one you wish you could live in for the rest of your life.

For every debased thought of yours he sees, he shows you one even more revealing. The way he used to dream of you at night, especially after a close battle where many Jedi and Clones fell, and then he’d wake up in a cold sweat with an erection pulsing feverish and so terribly shameful between his legs. How he tried to shove a pillow down there once to somehow relieve himself of the aching hardness, and then had to rip it away and launch it across the room with the Force when he realized he’d been dragging himself against it and thinking of you.

“I’m gonna—cum—” your voice scrapes across your throat, and you can already sense him throwing his beautiful consciousness out like a net. You match him with what little mental strength you have remaining, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and your ankles around his lower back and pulling him down into you.

Obi-Wan’s energy keeps swirling a brilliant aquamarine with yours, presenting his every subconscious thought to you, one right after another, so quick you can barely keep up. How he’ll always be with you, no matter what. How the Maker himself won’t be able to drag him away from you now. How quiet jealousy still tugs at his heart just thinking about the fact that you broke your oath—before you both could do it together.

Everything swells up inside you and you scream when it finally crashes over, your blended signatures sealing themselves together permanently and then detonating in a debilitating shockwave that ripples the air around you. You’re blinded and deafened by its vivid energy, powerful and dazzling every shade between blue and green and Light and Dark, all balanced perfectly together.

You lay there in the gentle afterglow afterwards and feel your pussy still clamping tight to him, pulsing in random intervals while Obi-Wan slouches into you and every muscle in his body trembles with the comedown. Everything is right. Everything in you sparkles.

“Stars, Obi,” you start chuckling up at the ceiling, the sheer joy overwhelming you and bringing tears to your eyes. “Stars, did we just—”

“We just won the Clone Wars, my dear,” he slurs into the crook of your neck while his cock still throbs inside you, and you can feel the exhaustion creeping up his spine, every single thought in his mind completely dead at the moment.

“How long do you… do you think it’ll take before it’s over?” You ask quietly, brushing your fingers through his hair. Obi-Wan groans and buries his face deeper into your neck.

“Few months, maybe. Time for s’Ziscari…”

He stays like that for just a second, and you press your nose to him and breathe him in, marveling at how utterly gorgeous his signature is right now. Clear blue with the lightest touch of teal, rippling like quiet water in a crystal calm riverbed.

Lovely.

You keep softly playing with the hair at his nape, and then quickly wrap your arms around him when he goes to try to brace his forearms next to your shoulders and lift up just the slightest bit.

“Wait, don’t—it’s—” You bite your lip and feel him sink back down into your body without another word, clearly having only attempted it for appearances. “This is good, let’s just… stay for a second.” 

He doesn’t respond, he doesn’t even move, and—a few months, you think. A few months of his absence, of wondering where he is but never being able to ask. It burdens your heart, but you understand it’s necessary.

 _The Council may… grant me a position with a more permanent location after this mission_ , he responds quietly to your dip in the Force after a moment, too tired to even talk anymore and exhaustion weaving his every thought. _On Coruscant._

Your heart pangs with sudden hope, and you know he can feel it. “They would do that?”

 _I could ask to oversee the s’Ziscari’s assimilation into our ranks_ , he offers alongside a stifled yawn into your collarbone.

He’d… _request_ that? To be closer to you? But _why?_

He doesn’t hesitate before offering the words to you simply, not even considering them before they’re the only thought in his mind. _Because I care for you more than there are stars in the sky. I always have._

Lovely.

No, no, not even, that’s just. Love. By itself.

“Yes,” Obi-Wan murmurs softly into your neck, and your soul feels like it grows wings.

You both lay there in silence for a long time after that, and it takes you even longer to realize he hasn’t succumbed to sleep yet, even as the aching fatigue weighs heavy on his back. He’s resisting it, keeping his eyes purposefully open against your neck while yours are blissfully shut.

“Master,” you eventually whisper up at the ceiling, and his cock twitches inside you. Oh _stars_ , you’ll have to remember that. “Go to sleep.”

 _I have one more confession._ The thoughts are slurred and distorted, barely conscious as he desperately tries to outlast the sleep trying to pull him under. _I didn’t even want to mention it before because I didn’t know how this was all going to go, but…_ He blinks slowly against your neck even as his eyes droop, only just a few seconds from passing out with exertion. _The Sh’inzith lasts six days, dove._

Your eyes pop open in shock just as his finally fall shut, and Obi-Wan stops fighting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> www.no-droids.tumblr.com

**Author's Note:**

> www.no-droids.tumblr.com

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The Locked Door by guardianangelcas](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26200819) by [HiJustBrowsingThanks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiJustBrowsingThanks/pseuds/HiJustBrowsingThanks)




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